Wonder if he'll ever come back here." "You bet he won't!" was the oracular reply.

"You bet he won't! From what I hear he got to be a sea cap'n himself and settled down there in Buenos Ayres.

He's made all kinds of money, they say, out of hides and such.
What he ever bought his dad's old place for, _I_ can't see.

He'll never come back to these common, one-horse latitudes, now you mark my word on that!" It was a prophecy Mr.Tidditt was accustomed to make each year to the crowd at the post office, when the receipt for the draft for taxes caused him to wax reminiscent.

The younger generation here in Bayport regard their town clerk as something of an oracle, and this regard has made Asaph a trifle vain and positive.
Bailey chuckled again.
"We WAS a spunky, dare-devil lot in the old days, wan't we, Ase ?" he said.