In that house dwelt, and dwelt alone, Captain Solomon Berry, Sim Phinney's particular friend.

Captain Sol was the East Harniss depot master and, from long acquaintance, Mr.Phinney knew that he should be through supper and ready to return to the depot, by this time.

The pair usually walked thither together when the evening meal was over.
But, except for the smoke curling lazily from the kitchen chimney, there was no sign of life about the Berry house.

Either Captain Sol had already gone, or he was not yet ready to go.

So Mr.Phinney decided that waiting was chancey, and set out alone.
He climbed Cross Street to where the "Hill Boulevard," abiding place of East Harniss's summer aristocracy, bisected it, and there, standing on the corner, and consciously patronizing the spot where he so stood, was Mr.Ogden Hapworth Williams, no less.
Mr.Williams was the village millionaire, patron, and, in a gentlemanly way, "boomer." His estate on the Boulevard was the finest in the county, and he, more than any one else, was responsible for the "buying up" by wealthy people from the city of the town's best building sites, the spots commanding "fine marine sea views," to quote from Abner Payne, local real estate and insurance agent.