it!"

They were all on their feet at this, and they pressed forward to shake
Briscoe's hand, congratulating him and each other as though they were
already victorious. Mr. Martin bent over Helen and asked her if she minded
shaking hands with a man who had voted for Shem at the first election in
the Ark.

"I thought I'd rightly ort to thank you for finishin' off Kedge Halloway,"
he added. "I made up my mind I'd never vote for him again, the night he
killed that intellectual insect of his."

"Intellectual insect, Mr. Martin?" she asked, puzzled.

He sighed. "The recollection never quits ha'ntin' me. I reckon I haven't
had a restful night since June. Maybe you don't remember his lecture."

"Oh, but I do," she laughed; "and I remember the story of the fly,
vividly."

"I never was jest what you might exactly call gushin' over Kedge," Mr.
Martin drawled. "He doesn't strike me as havin' many ideas, precisely--he
had kind of a symptom of one once, that he caught from Harkless, but it
didn't take; it sloshed around in his mind and never really come out on
him. I always thought his brain was sort of syrupy. Harkless thought there
was fruit in it, and I reckon there is; but some way it never seems to
jell."

"Go on," said Helen gayly. "I want to hear him abused. It helps me to feel
less mean about the way we are treating him."