moments quite easy to forget the Thing and all the memories that had cropped up with the Thing. He had passed it on, and Lippy was holding the baby.
In the few steps to his shop the Pole had no time to repent, though his mind was ill at ease. Mr. Montague was a strange man. He had strange wisdom. He could read strange books. And if Mr. Montague had come to warn him, well. …
Lippy dismissed the superstitious fear. He opened the bundle, he gazed on the Sacred Green Thing, he felt the pockets (of course), he saw the cheque book and the wealthy name. He shuddered—but he gloried. Then he fastened the whole up again, put the bundle into a great drawer under his counter, sighed a mechanical sigh of mechanical relief, and began to busy himself with the arranging and ticketing of his goods for the day.
But as that day wore on the Pole was not himself. He was too nervous, too snappy with customers, too much affected by slight sounds when the evening came, and all that night he lay but dozing, waking continually in starts from disordered dreams of unaccountable vengeance.
The next day, the Friday, Lippy was very
