Even in Kilo slang comes and goes as in the rest of the world and Miss Sally was not sure about the word "lung-tester." It had a slangy sound, and it must be a term of reproach applied to the future value of the four men Toole had mentioned. She accepted it as such.

"All I have to say," continued the attorney, "is to refuse the Colonel, and to refuse Skinner if he comes, just as you have refused this book agent. Stick up for your rights. If they want to sue you, let them sue. You have the money now, and it is better to have that than a lot of good-for-nothing lung-testers. Once you get them on your hands you'll never get rid of them."

He arose and took up his hat.

"That is all I have to say," he said, "but I wanted to let you know what you ought to do. Don't mind if there is a lot of stuff published in the TIMES. You have to expect that, and Jones will probably drag your name into it, in connection with the Colonel and Skinner, but you are perfectly innocent and they can do nothing to you."

He went out, and Miss Sally remained in a daze, looking at the door by which he had gone. She was still looking at it helplessly when Mrs. Tarbro-Smith came in with a swish of skirts and put her arm gently about her.

"DO you think you did what your heart told you to do, dear?" asked the lady from New York, kissing Miss Sally on the brow. "He was SO downcast. I really pitied him, poor man."

Miss Sally threw her arms around Mrs. Smith's waist and hit her face in the lacy softness of her gown, and wept. The authoress smoothed the brown hair and waited patiently for the tears to cease.

"Did you see Mr. Toole?" she asked brightly, to ease Miss Sally's weeping and to turn her thought to other things. "He wanted to see you about those fire-extinguishers. But I don't trust him. I think he has some plan or other that is selfish. I think he had been drinking."

Miss Sally's tears ceased, and she sat up, straight and severe.

"Fire-extinguishers?" she asked quickly.

"Yes," said Mrs. Smith; "he seemed to think Skinner or the Colonel or someone would want you to take them back. And return the money, I suppose."

"The money?" echoed Miss Sally slowly. She blushed as she saw that she had misunderstood the attorney, thinking he had dared to advise in her love matters, and then she frowned. "The money?" she repeated. "But I gave that money to pa. Pa won't ever give that money back, never! I don't know where on earth I'd ever get sixty dollars."

As she spoke she heard someone on the walk, and then the heavy feet of the Colonel climbing the porch steps. She heard him ask Susan if Miss Sally was inside, and heard the girl answer that she was, and she held Mrs. Smith's hand tighter.

"Come in," she called, to the knock on the door, and the Colonel stumped into the room. He was hot and angry, so angry that he did not stop to offer his usual curt greetings.

"Look here," he said, by way of introduction, "you an' your fire-extinguishers has got me into a purty fix, Sally Briggs—a blame purty fix-an' I want to know do you intend to git me out or not? I don't want no foolishness. Skinner is after me an' I've got to pay him back them sixty dollars, or somebody'll go to jail for it. You ought to have knowed them wasn't nothin' but lung-testers, afore you set me up to sellin' 'em to Skinner, an' not let me go an' make a 'tarnal fool out of myself. But that ain't the thing now; the thing is, will you pay back them sixty dollars? I guess you'd better do it, an' do it quick. Skinner'll have the law on ye if ye don't."

Miss Sally drew back toward Mrs. Smith as he scowled at her.

"Now, you git them sixty dollars an' hand 'em over to me, that's what you'd better do," said the Colonel. "I want to git shut of this business. I was a fool fer meddlin' in a woman's affairs in the fust place. I don't want to have no more hand in it. You git me that money, an' let me fix it up with Skinner. He's mad, an' he won't stand no foolin'. It was all I could do to keep him from comin' in an' makin' a row right here in the house. He's waitin' at the gate till he sees if I git the money, an' if I don't——"

"But I haven't got sixty dollars," Miss Sally gasped. "I gave that money to pa. I don't know whether I can GET sixty dollars out of pa."

She was so helpless that Mrs. Smith's blood boiled at the rude brutality of the Colonel, and she stepped forward and faced him.

"What is all this about?" she asked. "What is the matter with those fire-extinguishers? Why do you come bothering Miss Sally this way? Why don't you settle it with Mr. Skinner yourself?"

"The matter is, them ain't fire-extinguishers at all," said the Colonel rudely, "an' wasn't, an' never was. Them things is lung-testers, an' Sally was cheatin' Skinner when she sold 'em to him. An' the reason I'm botherin' her is that she got the money fer 'em, an' she's got to find it somehow an' pay it back. An' as for me settlin' with Skinner, I ain't got nothin' to do with it. I wasn't nothin' but Sally's agent. I done her a favor, an' that's all, an' I'm sorry I ever meddled in it."

"But there certainly can't be such haste needed," said Mrs. Smith. "Miss Sally is not going to run away. Mr. Skinner is not going to fail for want of sixty dollars, is he? You can wait until to-morrow, or to-night, when Miss Sally can see her father."

"No, I can't," said the Colonel doggedly. "I can't wait at all. By to-morrow mornin' that newspaper feller will have another paper printed up, an' I hear tell he's goin' to give us all plain names, an' I ain't goin' to wait. I want to git this thing fixed up right now. If Sally ain't got sixty dollars, let her go borry it. I got to pay Skinner right now, an' I want Sally to pay me. I want to git shut of this."

"I don't believe Mr. Skinner is in any such hurry as you pretend!" exclaimed Mrs. Smith. "I don't believe he is so ungenerous. I believe he is more chivalrous, I believe HE will have some manliness, if you have not."

She started for the door, but the Colonel grasped her by the arm.

"Hold on, here!" he said, but Mrs. Tarbro-Smith merely raised her eyebrows and looked, first at his hand on her arm, and then at his face, and his hand fell. He stood irresolute and uncomfortable as she went to the door and called to Mr. Skinner. The butcher walked up to the door, clearing his throat as he came. Mrs. Smith held the screen door wide for him to enter, and he walked into the parlor, holding his hat in his hands, and stood uneasily.

"The Colonel," said Mrs. Smith pleasantly, "has told us you wish Miss Sally to return the money you paid for what she supposed were fire-extinguishers."

"They was nothin' but lung-testers," said the butcher.

"So it seems," said Mrs. Smith, "and it is odd that a man of business like yourself should not know it in the first place. But of course Miss Sally did not know what they were. Who told you they were fire-extinguishers, Sally?"

"The Colonel," said Miss Sally, and the Colonel moved his feet uneasily.

"Indeed!" exclaimed Mrs. Smith, giving the Colonel another of her paralyzing glances. "But Miss Sally will do whatever is right. She hasn't the money at this moment. You can wait until to-morrow for the sixty dollars, can you not, until she can see her father?"

The butcher grew red in the face, redder than his naturally high coloring, but he shook his head.

"I want it now," he said. "Business is business." And after a moment he added, "It wasn't sixty, it was one hundred. Four at twenty-five, that's one hundred. One hundred dollars, that was what I handed Guthrie. I paid one hundred and I want one hundred back."

Miss Sally and Mrs. Smith looked at the Colonel.

"I had a right to make a commission," he blustered. "I ain't no sich fool as to do business fer other folks an' lose time by it. I took out a commission, an' I had a right to, an' I don't want to hear no more about it. A commission's fair."

"You didn't say anything about it," said poor Miss Sally. "Mrs. Smith was just surprised to learn of it."

"Surprised, my dear?" said Mrs. Smith, "No, indeed. Nothing that man would do could quite surprise me. But forty percent commission! Miss Sally hasn't sixty dollars in the house," she added, turning to the butcher. "You know very well people here don't have so much in the house at one time. If I had it I would gladly lend it to her, but I don't happen to have so much with me to-day. You can wait until Mr. Briggs gets back from Clarence, or you can do what you please."

"I want the money," said Skinner doggedly.

"Very well," said Mrs. Smith. "Collect forty from the Colonel. That will keep you from starving until to-morrow. And now will you both kindly leave the house?"

"Now, look here, Mrs. Smith, ma'm," said the butcher. "You ain't got any right to talk that way to me. Money matters is money matters, and a man has a right to look after his own the best way he can. I was cheated out of one hundred dollars by this man and Miss Sally, as easy as you please, and there's bribery in it, and land knows what. But I ain't mean. All I want is my money back, and I want it now. I hear T. J. Jones is going to get out an extry to-morrow morning all about this, and all I want is to do what is right. Hand me back my hundred dollars, and I'll go to T. J. and explain that Miss Sally did what was right, and tell him to leave her out of what he writes, but if I don't get the money I won't say a word to him. He can guess all he wants about Miss Sally and the Colonel being in cahoots with this bribe business. All I want is my money."

"But I say you shall have it in the morning."

"Well, I don't count much on what you'll get out of Pap Briggs. You might get ten cents, if he was feeling liberal, but he don't usually feel that way. What I want is one hundred dollars right now. I don't need no lung-testers, and I've been cheated, and I won't wait. If Miss Sally ain't going to pay me, I'll see what the law says about it."

"Mr. Skinner," said Mrs. Smith, "in consideration that Miss Sally is a lady and that you are a gentleman, will you not wait till to-morrow?"

"Business is business," he said flatly. "When I'm sellin' meat I ain't a gentleman, I'm a butcher; and when Miss Briggs was sellin' lung-testers she wasn't a lady, she was in business. Business is one thing an' bein' pleasant is another. I've got to look after my money or I soon won't have any."

When the two men went out Mrs. Smith could hear them begin to wrangle even before they quitted the yard, but she was more interested in what might happen to Miss Sally through the vindictiveness of the butcher. She was surprised to hear that T. J. Jones had even thought of such a thing as bringing Miss Sally's name into the matter as a conspirator, and she did not know enough about Iowa laws to know whether the butcher could take any summary action or not. The most satisfactory way to straighten things out would be to pay the butcher, but it must be done at once. She pleaded with Miss Sally to remember someone of whom she could borrow sixty dollars, but Miss Sally confessed that she knew no one who would be apt to lend so much. She even expressed her doubt that her father would ever release the money she had given him. The two women sat in the darkened parlor, Miss Sally weeping softly and Mrs. Smith thinking hard. The authoress was ashamed that she could devise no way to aid her friend, and there they sat, exchanging a brief word from time to time, and the gloom deepening every minute. Presently, when the atmosphere was so charged with sadness that it was almost too thick to breathe, Mrs. Smith called to Susan, and the girl came in.

"Sue," said Mrs. Smith, "will you run down to the TIMES office and see Mr. Jones? And—let me see—and tell him I very much want to see him before he begins to print his extra. You won't mind, will you?"

"Oh, no," said Susan cheerfully, and she went, a fairy in filmy white, while the two women relapsed into gloom again.

So softly did the next comer mount the porch stairs that the two women did not hear him until a gentle tap on the door frame, followed by an apologetic cough, announced the return of Eliph' Hewlitt.



CHAPTER XVII. According to Jarby's

When Eliph' Hewlitt, sad at heart, departed from his disastrous interview with Miss Sally, he felt, for the first time in his life, a doubt as to the infallibility of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art. Here was a book he had praised, sold and believed, and it had failed him. Here was a book that was proclaimed, in the "Advice to Agents," to be so simply written and so easy of understanding that a child could follow its directions as well as a man, and it had only led him to defeat. He had courted according to "Courtship"; he had tried to win the affections according to "How to Win" them, and instead of the "Yes" that Jarby's book led him to believe he would receive, he had been given a "No." This, then, was the book whose success he had made his life work! Caesar, when he saw Brutus draw his dagger, was wounded no more in spirit than Eliph' Hewlitt was now.

The world seemed to slip from beneath his feet; his firmest foundation seemed to have crumbled away; his best friend seemed to have turned false. As he walked toward Doc Weaver's house he decided what he would do: he would go to his room and tear his sample copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art to scraps and throw them out upon the wind; he would write to Jarby & Goss and resign his commission; he would have Irontail hitched to his buggy and leave Kilo at once and forever, and from some other town he would write to G. P. Hicks & Co., and solicit the agency for Hicks' Facts for the Million, a book he had heretofore hated and despised. All this he resolved to do, and yet here he was again at Miss Sally's door, and the sample copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art was under his arm!

Mrs. Tarbro-Smith, when she saw Eliph' Hewlitt at the door, uttered a little cry of joy and darted toward him. She put her finger to her lips and slipped out of the door and drew him to the seat that had once been a church pew, but was now doing duty as a garden-seat under an apple tree in the side yard. On Eliph's face was no longer the care-worn expression of the rejected lover, but the full glow of confidence, radiating from between his side-whiskers.

Mrs. Smith bent confidentially toward him, and laid one hand on the copy of Jarby's, which he had placed across his knees. In quick, crowding words she bade him hope—which wasn't necessary—and told him of the coming of Guthrie and Skinner, and of their demands. She laid before him all she knew of the affair of the fire-extinguishers, of the horror of the threatened legal attack on Miss Sally, and the disgrace that would overwhelm her should T. J. Jones publish an article mentioning her name. Eliph' Hewlitt must prevent the publication of the article; he must save Miss Sally.

The book agent was willing. As the appeal was spoken his eyes brightened and the book agent instinct—the instinct that knows no defeat, but will talk a book into any man's library, or die in the attempt—flowed full and free through his soul. Mrs. Smith saw him take fire, and she ventured the question she had been leading up to.

"Now, Mr. Hewlitt," she said, "I have sent for Mr. Jones, and I will do what I can to persuade him not to publish the article. I depend on you to do what you can in that, too, but I am going to trespass on your good nature in another thing also. It is something I know Miss Sally would never allow me to ask, and I myself would not ask it but that I happen to be waiting for a check from my publisher, and am quite out of funds at the moment. I am going to ask you to lend me sixty dollars! Not for myself, but to me. I believe Miss Sally would be willing to borrow it of me, and I know, dear Mr. Hewlitt, you will be willing to lend it to me."

Eliph' coughed softly behind his hand.

"Gladly!" he said. "Gladly any amount. I have quite a little money laid away, quite a little; some thousands, in fact; I might be called a wealthy man—in Kilo. And it would be a pleasure, a real pleasure, to spend all for Miss Sally. She is a fine woman, Mrs. Smith. I admire her."

"I knew I could depend on YOU," said Mrs. Smith, putting her white hand on his scarcely less white one.

"But I can appreciate Miss Sally's-ah-maidenly dislike, in fact, her quite proper dislike of a loan from-ah-one who aspires—— In fact," he said, boldly breaking away from all attempt to speak bookishly, "from me. She don't want to borrow from me, and it would be the same thing if you borrowed for her from me. The same thing. I am courting Miss Sally, and such a loan would be irregular. There is nothing, Mrs. Smith, in the chapter on 'Courtship—How to Win the Affections,' et cetery, about loaning money to the lady. It would derange the directions given in this book, which is——"

"I don't want to hear about the book," said Mrs. Smith with annoyance. "I know all about the book. So you refuse to lend me sixty dollars? You, like these other men, are willing to desert Miss Sally at a time like this?"

"No," said the book agent. "Not desert. Rescue. Rescue her from the hands of these—these men. Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art should be in every home, in every store, in every office. To be without it is to be like a rudderless air ship tossed by the waves of the relentless ocean. It contains a fact for every day in the year, for every moment of life, any one of which is worth the price of the book many times over. This book," he said—and then his eyes, which had been gazing far into the sky over Miss Sally's house, returned to the eyes of Mrs. Smith—"I am going to sell Mr. Skinner a copy of this book."

In spite of her disappointment in him, Mrs. Smith, the authoress, felt a thrill of pleasure in the discovery of such an admirable type—a book agent who could see in the midst of love, courtship, conspiracy and trouble only his book and a chance to sell it. But she was deeply disappointed.

"Then you desert Miss Sally," she repeated sadly.

"Mrs. Smith." Said Eliph', reaching into his pocket and laying a handful of thick greasy manila envelopes in her lap, "these are my bank books. Six, containing the sum of seventeen thousand four hundred and eighty-two dollars and forty-six cents, and all this I lay at Miss Sally's feet if I do not succeed in selling a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia this afternoon. If sold, the matter is settled."

When Eliph' reached the business part of Main Street he turned into Skinner's butcher shop and halted at the counter. The butcher was at work in the back room, and he put his head out and, seeing who had called, shook it.

"No books," he said shortly. "I never buy books. I didn't buy them Sir Walter Scotts even. No books."

Eliph' coughed his deprecatory little cough and walked behind the counter and to the door of the back room.

"So I understood," he said. "I heard at Franklin that you didn't buy books; it was mentioned to me that I would be wasting my time in calling on you. They said you was known all over the State as not buying books, and many admired your self-restraint in not buying. They said it was wonderful. That's why I never called on you to buy. But I didn't come to sell you a book. I wanted to ask if you knew William Rossiter?"

"William Rossiter?" asked Skinner, perplexed, coming out of the back room. "Who's William Rossiter?"

Eliph' laid his book on the chopping block.

"William Rossiter, agent," he said. "He was here once. He was the man that stopped with Miss Sally Briggs a while. I thought maybe you knew him. He's dead. I thought maybe you'd be interested to know it."

A light dawned on the butcher. William Rossiter must have been the man that left the lung-testers at Miss Sally's.

"I'm glad he's dead," he said. "I don't know anybody I'd sooner have it happen to."

"Don't say that!" exclaimed Eliph'. "If you only knew how he died, poor young man, you wouldn't say it. He burned to death."

"Well," said the butcher, "I don't know as I care how he died. I can't say I'm sorry. I guess he cost me a hundred dollars. I've got to go to law for it if I ever want to see it again. I guess he deserved to die, for the trouble he has made in this town."

Eliph' placed his hand on the sample copy of Jarby's.

"I will tell you how he died," he said briskly.

"No, you won't," said Skinner angrily, waving his hand toward the door; "you won't tell me nothin'. I've heard of these stories of yours, I have. You want to sell me one of them books, and you'll talk away at me about this Rossiter feller, and the first thing I know you'll have me down for a book. But you won't, for if you don't get right out of that door I'm goin' to put you out."

"All right," said Eliph' cheerfully, picking up his book, "if that's the way you feel about it I won't take up your time telling you about it I won't take up your time telling you about Bill Rossiter. Only I thought you'd like to know how it happened he was burned up in a theater when there was two dozen as good fire-extinguishers, right at hand, as there is in the world. But I won't intrude. I know myself too well, and I know I might happen to get to talking books before I thought. You see," he said, as if apologizing for himself, "I can't forget how this book saved my life, and might have saved the life of Bill Rossiter, too, if he had had a copy, the price being only five dollars, bound in cloth, one dollar down and one dollar a month until paid."

"There," said Skinner, as if Eliph' had offended him, "you are talkin' books right now, like I said you would."

"Was I?" asked Eliph'. "And all I started out to say was that I met Bill Rossiter in St. Louis just after he had run away from here. He told me all about it, and wept on my shoulder as he told me how it pained him to have to skip that way. He said it wasn't as if he could have left Miss Briggs anything that she could use, but-lung-testers! He asked me what a town like Kilo could do with lung-testers, and he felt awful about it. Said he couldn't bear to look at a lung-tester any more, they made him feel so ashamed, and what made it all the worse was that he had to look at them all day."

"I should think they would," said the butcher heartily. "It makes me sick to see them. But why did he do it if he didn't like it?"

"I was just going to tell you that," said Eliph', putting down his book again. "You see, when he left here he went right to St. Louis, that being where his home was, and that was how he happened to have lung-testers with him when he was here. His father made them. That was his father's business. He was in the lung-tester manufacturing business. So when Bill Rossiter left here he went right home to his father, which was the wise thing to do."

"Went home to sponge on the old man, I suppose," said Skinner.

"Just so," agreed Eliph', "and that was how I happened to meet him. There was a man there in St. Louis by the name of Hopper-Darius Hopper-and he owned the Imperial Theater and Museum. He was an old friend of mine, and I had sold him a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art away back in 1874, and as soon as he heard I was stopping in St. Louis he sent around to the hotel and begged me to come around to the museum and give readings out of Jarby's to the people that come into the museum. He said that it would draw bigger crowds in a cultured city like St. Louis than would come to see a two-headed calf or a fat women's race, being a course of readings that would instruct, entertain and please, and he asked me to name my own price."

"I should call him a fool," said Skinner scornfully.

"He wasn't," said Eliph'. "It took splendid. But I wouldn't let him pay me a cent. I said I considered it my sacred duty to make as many people as I could love and know Jarby's, and that I was doing my best to better the world that way, and was glad to do it free gratis, because in a big place like St. Louis there were many that could not afford even the small price of one dollar down and one dollar a month, which is all that is asked for this splendid volume, containing all the wisdom of the world, from the earliest days to the present time, neatly bound in cloth, and I felt I was helping the cause of progress by reading them a few chapters. I began at page one," continued Eliph', opening the book in his hands, "skipping the allegorical frontispiece in three colors, and the index in which ten thousand——-"

"I thought you was goin' to tell me about William Rossiter," said the butcher suspiciously.

"So I am," said Eliph'. "William Rossiter was on the third floor of the Theater and Museum building, for that was the job his father hunted up for him. William was in charge of the penny-in-the-slot machines of all kinds, a full description of which will be found in this book under the head of 'Machines, Automatic,' including a description of how made, how to use and how to repair. In fact, there is nothing in the way of information, from how to tell the weight of a baby by measuring its waist, to the age, size and history of the immortal pyramids of Egypt, one of the seven wonders of the world, that this book does not contain. It interests alike the student and the business man. And," he continued quickly as Skinner was about to interrupt him, "among the slot machines of which William Rossiter had charge were twenty-four lung-testers."

"Twenty-four!" exclaimed Skinner. "Them St. Louis folks must like to test their lungs!"

"No," said Eliph', "they don't, and that is what makes me feel so bad about William Rossiter. The St Louis people didn't care for lung-testers at all. They crowded pennies into all the other machines, but they would just go up to the lung-testers and sort of sniff at them, and walk away without trying them. So there those twenty-four lung-testers stood, useless to man and beast, all in a row, doing nobody any good, and there I was on the floor below reading out of a book that would have told Bill Rossiter how to make those lung-testers worth their weight in gold, and would have saved his life. And to think he could have bought this book for the small nominal sum of——"

"You said that once," said Skinner. "Five dollars; one dollar down, and one dollar a month until paid."

"Bound in cloth," said Eliph'. "Seven fifty if in morocco leather. So at the very minute that the fire broke out——"

"Fire!" said Skinner; "what fire? You didn't say anything about a fire."

"The fire in the theater and museum," said Eliph'. "It started right on the stairs between the second and third floors, and the old building flared up like dry paper. Two or three men that was trying the slot machines saw the smoke and run for the lung-testers, thinking by the look they were fire-extinguishers, which was the most natural mistake in the world. The looks of them would fool anybody, but they were lung-testers, and there that old building was, with twenty-four lung-testers in it, and not one fire-extinguisher. After that fire they passed an ordinance compelling every theater to have four fire-extinguishers."

"And do they have them?" asked Skinner.

"Every first-class theater and opera house does, all over the United States," said Eliph'. "But the odd thing was that at the very moment the fire broke out I had this book open at page 416, 'Fire—Its Traditions—How to Make a Fire Without Matches—Fire Fighting—Fire Extinguishers, How Made.' I was reading to those people how to make fire-extinguishers at home out of common chemicals and any suitable nickel-plated can, that would be as good as the best sold in any store, and right as I read it I thought how easy it would be for any man or child to turn those twenty-four useless lung-testers on the third floor into first-class fire-extinguishers, by following the simple directions set down on page 418, at a cost of only about twenty-six cents each——"

Skinner held out his hand for the book.

"Let me have a look at that book," he said.

Eliph' picked up the book and tucked it under his arm.

"And at that minute came the cry of 'Fire!'" he said. "And I thought of poor Bill Rossiter up there on the third floor, shut off from all hope of rescue——-"

Skinner reached down to his cash drawer and pulled it open. He took out a dollar bill and held it toward Eliph'. The book agent ignored it.

"Think of it," he said. "Bill Rossiter on the third floor, burning up, and me on the floor below with this book in my hand reading off of page 418 the names of the simple ingredients that would——"

"Mebby I might as well pay the whole five right now," said Skinner, taking four more dollars out of his drawer. "Could you leave that book with me?"

"I will, as a special favor," said Eliph'.

"Well, say," said Skinner, "I'll be mortally obliged to you if you will. It will take a mighty load off of my mind."

And when Eliph' left the butcher shop he had, for the first time in his life, sold his sample copy.



CHAPTER XVIII. Another Trial

When Eliph' stepped out of the butcher shop he saw T. J. Jones across the street, returning from his interview with Mrs. Smith, and the book agent hailed him and crossed the street. The editor wore a harassed look as Eliph' stepped up to him, and it deepened when Eliph' asked him if he had acceded to Mrs. Smith's request.

"Hewlitt," he said, "I couldn't do it. I wanted to, but I couldn't. The man was willing but the editor had to refuse. The press cannot sink the public welfare to favor individuals; once the freedom of the press is lost the nation relapses into sodden corruption. I told Mrs. Smith so. And besides, I have the whole article in type, too. I like Mrs. Smith, and I like Miss Sally, but the hissing cobra of corruption must be crunched beneath the heel of a free and independent press. The TIMES must do its duty, let the chips fall where they may."

"'The pen is mightier than the sword,' page 233, Apt Quotations for All Occasions," said Eliph', "this being one of three thousand quotations, arranged alphabetically according to subject, as 'Bird—in the hand, Bird—of a feather, Bird—killing two with one stone,' et cetery, including 'Leap—look before you,' and 'Sure—be sure you're right, then go ahead.' What do you mean to print?"

The editor told him all he had been able to gather regarding the matte of the fire-extinguishers, and as he talked Eliph' saw the butcher leave his shop and enter the drug store—he was after chemicals. He turned to the editor with fresh assurance.

"See page 88, 'Every Man his Own Lawyer,'" he said, "giving all that it is necessary for any man to know regarding the laws of his native land, including laws of business, how to draw up legal papers, what constitutes libel, et cetery. This one division alone being worth the whole cost of the book, showing among other things what a paper should print and what it should not. Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art is a marvelous work, including as it does the chapter on 'Fire—Its Traditions—How to Make a Fire Without Matches—Fire Fighting—Fire Extinguishers, How Made,' et cetery, containing directions by which man, woman or butcher can convert lung-testers into approved fire-extinguishers at a cost of only twenty-six cents. It is a good book. I just sold Mr. Skinner one."

He watched the editor's face as the meaning of his words dawned on it, and added:

"Miss Briggs has a copy, morocco binding, including among ten thousand and one subjects 'What Constitutes Libel.'"

"Then those fire-extinguishers will be all right, after all?" said the editor. "You want to look out how you trifle with the press. The press never forgives nor forgets."

"Those lung-testers, prepared according to Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, would put out the flames of the fiery furnace prepared for Shadrach, Meschach and Abednego, mentioned in 'Bible Tales,' Condensed and Put into Words of One Syllable for Children,' page 569, Jarby's Encyclopedia," said Eliph' airily. "They would satisfy an investigation committee of imps, or other experts."

The editor thought for a minute and Eliph' looked at him and smiled, gently combing his whiskers with his fingers.

"That's all right," said the editor. "That lets Miss Sally out, and it may satisfy Skinner, but it don't do away with the bribery. Mayor Stitz was bribed and he admits it. He says he was, and he brags about it. Guthrie bribed him, and I've got enough left to give Stitz and Guthrie a good shot. I'll leave Skinner and Miss Briggs out, but I'll go for Stitz and Guthrie. I'll show them that in Kilo the press is alert, wide awake, and not to be trifled with. I'll teach them a lesson."

"So do!" said Eliph'. "And make Miss Sally mad. And make Mrs. Smith mad. And make Miss Susan mad. And me. So do, and have Tolle tell them that he did not want you to print it, and that he went up and fought you to get you not to print it. So do, and instead of having Miss Sally and Mrs. Smith and me your friends, have us run you down to Susan. Instead of having hit Toole by printing the thing sooner than he wanted, as you did, print more, and do him a favor. Make him a favorite of Miss Sally's. So do, if you want to. Or—have me go to Miss Susan and say you will not relent but that there is one chance—that she shall plead with you herself."

He stepped back and looked at the hesitating Jones.

"Jones," he said, "the way you are acting, the way you hesitate, would tell anybody that you have not a copy of Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, in your office. No man who has read that book would lack wisdom, that work containing under one cover all the wisdom I the world, price five dollars, two dollars off to the press. Buy a copy and be sensible."

Jones looked far down the street toward his office as if the matter he had there standing in the galley was begging him not to desert it.

"Courtship—How to Make Love—How to Win the Affections—How to Hold them When Won," said Eliph'. "See Jarby's giving advice to those in love, those wishing to win the affections, et cetery. 'If the object of the affections can be placed in a position where she will be compelled to ask a favor, the granting of it, however slight, will advance the cause of the eager suitor."

"I don't care!" said T. J. Jones suddenly. "I'd lose Skinner's ad if I printed that article, and he pays cash."

"Mine too," said Eliph', "and I was just thinking of doubling it. Jarby's deserves——"

"That's all right," said the editor, with a sigh of relief. "You needn't have Miss Susan come begging me. Just tell her I gave up printing the article because you said she wouldn't like it."

"Don't throw away a chance," urged Eliph' putting a hand on the young man's arm. "Be wise. Do as Jarby's says. Be urged. I followed Jarby's advice."

"Why are you—are you, too?" asked T. J., beaming upon him.

Eliph' coughed behind his hand.

"Yes," he said, "Miss Briggs. I followed Jarby's advice—and won."

"Congratulations!" said the editor. "Have it your own way then. I'll be at Miss Sally's after supper, if Sue wants to coax."

They parted, and as Eliph' walked happily toward his boarding house he did not realize that he had not won, nor that his appeal had been rejected by Miss Sally, for he had regained his faith in Jarby's and if he had not yet won, he felt that he would, and that was the same thing.

After his supper Eliph' felt that the time had come to arrange things with Miss Sally. There was no longer any cause for delay. He had arranged the matter of the fire-extinguishers; he had settled the matter of the TIMES, and he felt that Skinner and the Colonel must have hurt by their actions their causes with Miss Sally. They had, indeed, far more than Eliph' guessed. He repaired to his room and brushed his whiskers carefully. Never had he appeared smarter than when he went out of the gateless opening in Doc Weaver's fence, and turned his face toward Miss Sally's home.

His way led him pas the mayor's little car, where Stitz was on his platform smoking and evening pipe. The mayor halted him with a motion of his pipe stem.

"Mister Hewlitt," he said, "you know too that joke, yes? About those lung-testers was not fire-extinguishers?"

"That's all right," said Eliph', seeking to pass on, "It is all fixed up now. They ARE fire-extinguishers."

"Such a fool business on Skinner," said the mayor with enjoyment. "And on Stitz, too. I thinks me I am the boss grafter, and I ain't!"

He chuckled.

"No-o!" he said cheerfully. "But next times I makes no more such fool mistakes; I make me a real boss grafter. I am now only a boss-fool, but boss grafter. So says Attorney Toole. Money is grafts, and houses and lots is grafts, and horses is grafts, and buggies, but," and he paused impressively, "apples isn't, and potatoes isn't, and peas isn't, and chickens isn't. Nothing to eat is grafts. If it is to eat it is not grafts. So says Attorney Toole. Things to eat is no more grafts as lung-tester is fire-extingables. So says Toole. So nobody won't prosecute me. I stick me to the mayor business yet a while. Klops on the head is nothings much; all big men gets them. So says Attorney Toole."

Skinner was locking his shop when Eliph' passed, and the stopped Eliph' too.

"Works fine," he said. "I tried a tomato canful on a bonfire in the back yard, and it put it out like a wink. That's a great book; I'm glad you spoke about it. I wish you'd told me about it sooner."

Miss Sally was not on the porch when Eliph' arrived, for she was still in the kitchen at the supper dishes, but Mrs. Smith and Susan were there, and they greeted him eagerly. The little man smiled as he walked up to them, and waved his hand in the air.

"You fixed it?" cried Mrs. Smith. "It is all right now?"

"Fixed from A to Z," said Eliph', as he took a seat on the porch step. "All right from the allegorical frontispiece in three colors to the back page. Jarby's wins, and error don't. Miss Sally in?"

He heard the click of the dishes as Miss Sally laid them one by one on the kitchen table, so he knew well she was in.

"It might relieve her mind if I told her," he suggested, and Mrs. Smith smiled and said it might.

"Go right in," she said, and Eliph' did.

He went into the hall and coughed gently behind his hand, and Miss Sally looked up. She wiped her hands hastily on her blue gingham apron, and came into the hall.

"Jarby's fixed it," he said, and rapidly related what he had done, with illustrations in the way of quotations from the titles and sub-titles of Jarby's. "When you have a moment to spare," he added, "I would like to speak to you. I want to tell you something about Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art, a copy of which I see lying on your parlor table, forming an adornment to the home both useful and helpful."

"Well, I don't want no books," said Miss Sally, "I've got one copy, and that ought to be enough to adorn any home. And I've got to get these dishes washed sometime. I've let the fire go out, and the water will be cold. If there's anything important you want to say about that book, you can go out and wait till I get the dishes done."

"It's about how to get the best use out of it," said Eliph'. "I'll go out and wait. It's something everybody that has a copy ought to know."

He went out as she said, and found Susan alone on the porch. Mrs. Smith was at the gate, and he could see her white dress in the evening darkness. Susan sat with a knitted shawl about her shoulders, for the evening were already growing chill, so long had Eliph's courtship lengthened out. He could not have had a better opportunity to speak to Susan alone, and he warned her of the "piece" T. J. had threatened to publish in the morning, and of the disgrace and sorrow it would bring to Miss Sally. The girl listened eagerly and her indignation grew as he went on, so that he had to veer, and expatiate on the virtues of T. J. and the right of the modern press to meddle in private affairs when it wants to.

"And can't anything be done?" asked Susan. "Why don't somebody do something? I didn't think Thomas was like that."

"He isn't," admitted Eliph' heartily. "But he needs coaxing. If you were to coax him he might see how wrong he is. I shouldn't wonder if he would come up here to-night, looking for me, being interested in Jarby's Encyclopedia and anxious to get a copy at the reduced price of two dollars off, offered to the press only. If he does, try to move him."

"I will," said Susan. "And if he publishes that piece, I'll never speak to him again."

Eliph' was still sitting there when T. J. came, and when Susan proposed a walk down to the corner he knew that it would be all right with T. J. Jones. A light coming suddenly over his shoulder from the parlor behind him told him that Miss Sally was ready to receive him, and he took his hat and went into the house.

Miss Sally was sitting in the rocker with the cross-stitch cover, and Eliph' took a seat at the opposite side of the center-table and lifted the morocco bound copy of Jarby's from its place beside the shell box. The kerosene lamp glowed between them, and he drew closer to the table and laid the book gently on his knees. Miss Sally sat straight upright in her chair and looked at the little book agent.

"This book," he said, looking up at her with eyes in which kindness and business mingled, "although sold, in this handsome binding, for seven fifty, is worth, to one who understands it, its weight in gold. It holds a help for every hour and a hint for every minute of the day. It furnishes wisdom for a lifetime. I read it and study it; for every difficulty of my life it furnishes a solution. Corns? It tells how to cure them. Food? It tells how to cook it. Love? It tells how to make it. But," he said, laying his hand affectionately on the morocco cover, "to be understood it must be read. To read it well is to admire and cherish it, and yet, only this morning I was about to tear my copy of this priceless volume to pieces and scatter it to the four winds of heaven."

He paused to let this awful fact sink into Miss Sally's mind.

"Yes," he continued, "I was about to turn away from the best friend I have in the world and declare to one and all that Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art was a fraud! When I left your home yesterday, I was full of anger. I was mad at Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art. I had trusted to its words and directions, as set forth in, Courtship—How to Make Love—How to Win the Affections—How to Hold Them When Won, and you sent me away. I went away a different man than I had come, and resolved to go away from Kilo, and never to sell another copy of this book. I resolved to take the sale of 'Hicks' Facts for the Million,' a book, although greater in cost, containing by actual count sixteen thousand less words than this.

"I went to my room at Doc Weaver's," he continued, "and seized my copy of this work from where it lay on my bureau. I called it names. I told it it was a cheat and a liar. Yes, Miss Sally, I let my angry passions rise against this poor, innocent book. I believed it had advised me falsely. I had trusted to its words and had done as it said to do, and you had sent me away, not in anger, but in sorrow, but just as much away. I picked up the book and opened it, grasping it in two hands to tear it asunder."

He opened the book and showed her how he had grasped it.

"I pulled it to tear it in two," he said, raising the book and pulling it in the direction of asunder, "but it would not rip. It was bound too well, the copies bound in cloth at five dollars, one dollar down and one dollar a month until paid, being bound as firmly as the more expensive copies at seven fifty. I pulled harder and the book came level with my nose. I saw it had opened at 'Courtship—How to Make Love,' and I said, 'While I am getting my breath to give this book another pull, why not read the lie that is written here once more? It will give me strength to rend it asunder.' So I read it."

He looked at Miss Sally and saw that she was showing no signs of being bored.

"I held the book like this," he said, showing how he held it, "and read. All that it said to do I had done and my anger grew stronger. But I turned the page! I saw the words I had not seen before; words that told me I had tried to tear my best friend to pieces. I sand into a chair trembling like a leaf. I felt like a man jerked back from the edges of Niagara Falls, a full description and picture of that wonder of nature being given in this book among other natural masterpieces. I weakly lifted the book back again and read those golden words."

"What was it?" asked Miss Sally, leaning forward.

"'Courtship—How to Make Love—How to Win the Affections—How to Hold Them When Won.'" said Eliph', turning to the proper page. "And the words I read were these: 'The lover should not be utterly cast down if he be refused upon first appealing for the dear one's hand. A first refusal often means little or nothing. A lady frequently uses this means to test the reality of the passion the lover has professed, and in such a case a refusal is often a most hopeful sign. Unless the refusal has been accompanied by very evident signs of dislike, the lover should try again. If at the third trial the fair one still denies his suit, he had better seek elsewhere for happiness, but until the third test he should not be discouraged. The first refusal may be but the proof of a finer mind than common in the lady.'"

Eliph' removed his spectacles and laid them carefully in the pages of the book which he closed and placed gently on the center-table.

"Having read that," he said, "I saw that I had done this work a wrong. I had read it hastily and had missed the most important words. I felt the joy of life returning to me. I remembered that you were a lady of finer mind than common, and I understood why you had refused me. I resolved to stay in Kilo and justify Jarby's Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art by giving it another trial. And now," he said, placing his hand on the book where it lay on the table and leaning forward to gaze more closely into Miss Sally's face, while she faced him with a quickened pulse, and a blush, "now, I want to ask you again, WILL you put your name down for a copy of this work——" He stopped appalled at what he had said, and stared at Miss Sally for one moment foolishly, while over her face spread not a frown of anger or contempt, but a pleasant smile of friendly amusement.

"Not the book," he said, "but me."

Miss Sally looked at the eager eyes that were not only serious, but sincere and kind.

"Well, Mister Hewlitt," she said, "I guess I'll have to marry someone some time so I might as well marry you as anybody. But I don't think pa will ever give consent to havin' a book agent in the family. He hates book agents worse than I used to."

"You don't any more," said Eliph', putting his hand very far across the table.

"Well, no, I don't," said Miss Sally graciously, "not all of 'em."



CHAPTER XIX. Pap Briggs' Hen Food

The doubt that Miss Sally had expressed regarding Pap Briggs' acceptance of Eliph' Hewlitt as a son-in-law was mild compared with the fact. When the old man returned the next day from his farm at Clarence and learned from Miss Sally that she had promised to marry the book agent he was furiously angry. For two whole days he refused to wear his store teeth at all, and when he recovered from his first height of anger it was to settle down into a hard and fast negative. He went about town telling anyone that would listen to him that there ought to be licenses against book agents, and once having made up his mind that Miss Sally should not marry Eliph' as long as he remained alive to prevent it, not even the friendly approaches of the book agent could move him from his stubborn resolution. Miss Sally would not think of marrying while her father was in such a state of opposition, and indeed, Eliph' did not urge it. He had no desire to defy his father-in-law, and he unwillingly but kindly agreed to wait.

In this way the autumn faded into winter. Mrs. Tarbro-Smith returned to New York with a note-book full of dialect and a head full of local color and types, and if she took Susan with her it was only because she agreed to bring her back in June, when T. J. Jones was to marry her. Miss Sally lived on with her father, attending to his wants, which were few and simple. An egg for breakfast, and enough tobacco to burn all day were his chief earthly desires, eggs because he could eat them in comfort, and tobacco because he liked it.

When Miss Sally had moved to town there was one thing she had said her father SHOULDN'T do, after living all his life on a farm, and that was, have store eggs for his breakfast.

"Hens is trouble enough, Lord knows," said Miss Sally, "an' dirty, if they can't be kep' in their place; but there's some comfort in their cluckin' round, and I guess I'll have plenty of time, and to spare to tend to 'em; so, Pap, you won't have to eat no stale eggs for breakfast, if I kin help it. They ain't nothing' I hate to think on like boughten eggs. Nobody knows how old they are, nor who's been a-handlin' them; and eat boughten eggs you shan't do, sure's my name's Briggs!"

So Sally brought half a dozen hens and a gallant rooster to town with her, and supervised the erection of a cozy coop and hen-yard, and Pap had the comfort of knowing his eggs were fresh. But fresh or not, it made no difference to him so long as he had one each morning, and it was fairly edible.

"These teeth o' mine," he told Billings, the grocer, "cost twelve dollars down to Franklin, by the best dentist there; but, law sakes! A feller can't eat hard stuff with any comfort with 'em for fear of breakin' 'em every minute. They ain' nothin' but chiney, an' you know how chiney's the breakiest thing man ever made. That's why I say, 'Give me eggs for breakfast, Sally,'—and eggs I will have."

The six hens did their duty nobly during the summer and autumn and a part of the winter, and Pap had his egg unfailingly; but in December the long cold spell came, and the six hens struck. It was the longest and coldest spell ever known in Kilo, and it hung on and hung on until the entire hen population of Eastern Iowa became disgusted and went on a strike. Eggs went up in price until even packed eggs of the previous summer sold for twenty-seven and thirty cents a dozen, and angel-cake became an impossible dainty.

The second morning that Pap Briggs ate this eggless breakfast he suggested that perhaps Sally might buy a few eggs at the grocery.

"Pap Briggs," she exclaimed reproachfully, "the idee of you sayin' sich a thin! As if I would cook packed eggs! No; we'll wait, and mebby the hens will begin layin' again in a day or two."

But they did not, and the days became a week, and two weeks, and still no eggs rewarded her daily search. Pap knew better than to repeat his suggestion of buying eggs, for Sally Briggs said a thing only when she meant it, and to mention it again would only exasperate her.

"Our hens don't lay a blame egg," Pap told Billings complainingly, "and Sally won't buy eggs, and I can't eat nothin' but eggs for breakfast, so I reckon I'll jist have to naturally starve to death."

"Why don't you try some of our hen-food?" asked Billings, taking up a package and reading from the label. "'Guaranteed to make hens lay in all kinds of weather, the coldest as well as the warmest' That's just what you want, Pap."

"Well," said Pap, "I been keepin' hens off and on for nigh forty year, and I ain't ever seen any o' that stuff that was ary good; but I got to have eggs or bust, so I'll take a can o' that stuff. But I ain't no hopes of it, Billings, I ain't no hopes."

His pessimism was well founded. The cold spell was too much even for the best hen-food to conquer. No eggs rewarded him.

One evening he was sitting in Billings', smoking his pipe and thinking. He had been thinking for some time, and at length a sparkle came into his eyes, and he knocked the ashes from his pipe and arose.

"Billings," he said, "mix me up about a nickel's wuth o' corn-meal, and a nickel's wuth o' flour, and"—he hesitated a moment and then chuckled—"and a nickel's wuth o' wash-blue."

"For heaven's sake, Pap," said Billings, "have ye gone plumb crazy?"

"No, I ain't," said Pap. "I ain't lost all my brains yit, nor I ain't gone plumb crazy yit, neither. That's a hen food I invented."

"Hen-food!" exclaimed Billings. "You don't 'low that will make hens lay, do you, Pap?"

"I ain't advisin' no one to use it that don't want to," said Pap, "but I bet you I'm a-goin' to feed that to my hens"; and he chuckled again.

"Pap," said Billings, "you're up to some be-devilment, sure! What is it?"

"You jist keep your hand on your watch till you find out," answered Pap, and he took his package and went home.

"Sally," he said when he entered the house, "I got some hen-food now that's bound to make them hens lay, sure."

She took the package and opened it.

"For law's sake, Pap," she said, "what kind o' hen-food is that? It's blue!"

"Yes," said Pap, looking at it closely, "it IS blue, ain't it? It's a mixture of my own. I ain't been raisin' hens off an' on fer forty year for nothin'. You got to study the hen, Sally, and think about her. Why don't a hen lay in cold weather? 'Cause the weather makes the hen cold. This will make her warm. You jist try it. Give 'em a spoonful apiece an' I reckon they'll lay. It don't look like much, but I bet you anything it'll make them hens lay."

"I don't believe it," she snapped, "and I'll hold you to that bet, sure's my names Briggs." But the next day she gave them the allotted portion.

That evening when Pap Briggs knocked the ashes from his pipe and rose from his seat in Billings' store, he said, "Billings, have you got some mainly fresh eggs—eggs you kin recommend?"

"Yes, I have," said Billings, with a grin. "So your hen-food don't work, Pap?"

Pap chuckled.

"It's a-workin," he said, "and you can give me a dozen o' them eggs. And, say, you need't tell Sally."

Billings laughed. "I'm on," he said.

Pap put the bag of eggs back of the cracker-box, and put three of them in his pocket.

When he reached home he quietly slipped around the house and deposited the three eggs in three nests, and went it.

The next morning Sally greeted him with a smile. "Eggs this mornin', Pap," she said. "That hen-food did work like a charm. I got three eggs."

Pap ate without comment until he had finished the second egg. He felt that he could eat a dozen, after his long fast.

"It do seem good to have eggs agin," he said.

That evening, and the next evening he deposited three eggs as before. On the third morning Sally said: "It's queer about them hens, Pap; they lay, but they don't cluck like a hen generally does when she lays an egg."

Pap hesitated for a moment.

"It's sich cold weather," he said, "I reckon that's why."

About a week later Sally said: "I do declare to gracious, Pap, them hens do puzzle me."

Pap moved uneasily in his seat.

"The do puzzle me!" repeated Sally. "Here the are layin' right along as reg'lar as summer-time, and never cluckin' or lettin' on a bit, and the queerest thing is they jist lay three eggs every day. It don't seem natural!"

That night Pap put four eggs in the nests. The next night he put in five, and the next night three, and the danger into which his wiles had fallen was averted.

One morning Sally startled him by saying: "Pap, I can't make them hens out. Here they are a-layin' right along, and all at once they quit layin' decent sized eggs like they ought, and begin layin' little mean things no better than banty eggs."

Pap scratched his head.

"You must allow, Sally," he said, "that it's quite a strain on a hen to keep a-layin' right along through such weather as this, and I'm only thankful they lay any. Mebby if you give them a leetle more o' that hen-food they'll do better."

"I believe it," said Sally. "Why, it's wonderful, Pap. I shouldn't be a bit surprised to find 'em layin' duck eggs if I jist give 'em enough o' that stuff."

Pap looked closely at her face, but it was innocent of guile. She suspected nothing.

The next day the eggs were of the proper size.

"It's a real blessin' to have hens a-layin'," she said one day. "I took half a dozen over to the minister's wife this mornin', and she was so pleased! She said it was sich a blessin' to have fresh eggs again. She was gittin' sick o' them she's been buyin' at Billings'. She was downright thankful."

About a week later she said:

"Them hens of ourn do beat all creation. I run out o' that hen-food a week ago, and I hain't give them a mite since, and they keep a-layin' jist the same. I can't make head nor tail of them, Pap."

Pap squirmed in his chair.

"Pshaw, now, Sally," he said, "you'd ought to have let me know you was out. You oughtn't to do that. Feed 'em plenty of it. They deserve it. If you stop feedin' them they'll stop layin' pretty soon. The effect of that hen-food don't last more'n two weeks. No," he said thoughtfully, "ten days is the longest I ever knowed it to last 'em."

If Pap Briggs enjoyed his eggs for breakfast he enjoyed as fully the many laughs he had with Billings over the scheme, and Billing found it hard to keep his promised secrecy. It would be such a good story to tell. But Pap exhorted him daily, and he did not let the secret out.

One Sunday morning Pap came down to his breakfast and took his seat. Sally brought his coffee and bacon. Then she brought him a plate of moistened toast.

"You've forgot the eggs, Sally," said Pap admonishingly.

"They ain't none this morning," said Sally briefly.

Pap looked up and saw that her mouth was set very firmly.

"No eggs?" he asked tremulously.

"No," she said decidedly, "no eggs! I kin believe that hens lay eggs and don't cluck, and I kin believe that hens lay eggs all winter, and I kin believe that Plymouth Rock hens lay Leghorn eggs and Shanghai eggs and Banty eggs, Pap, but when hens begin layin' spoiled eggs I ain't no more faith in hens."

Pap laid down his knife and fork.

"Spoiled eggs!" he ejaculated.

"Yes, spoiled eggs," she declared. "You and Billings ought to be more careful."

Pap turned his bacon over and eyed it critically. Then he frowned at it. Then he chuckled.

"You needn't laugh," said Miss Sally severely. "You don't get no more eggs until the hens begin laying regular. You can eat moistened toast. You ain't fair to me, pa. You set up to say who I shall marry, when I'm old enough to know for myself, and then you go and cheat me about eggs. Mebby I ain't old enough to know who to marry, but I'm old enough to run this house for you, and you don't get no more eggs. No more eggs until spring, or until I can marry who I want to."

Pap looked at the mushy piece of toast and grinned sheepishly.

"You'd be worse of 'n ever, Sally," he said meekly, "if so be you married a man that felt he had to hev eggs every morning. They'd be two of us then."

"Well, Id just have to buy eggs then," she said, "if that come to pass. I couldn't expect these few hens to lay enough eggs in winter for two men. If I had to buy eggs for a husband, I'd buy them."

The old man ate his toast slowly and without relish.

"Sally," he said that afternoon, "I guess mebby you'd better git married. I'm gittin' old. You'd better marry that book agent whilst you got a chance."

It was Pap Briggs who urged an early date, after that, and who was most joyous at the wedding.

"Pap," asked Sally one morning soon after she and Eliph' were married, while the three were sitting at breakfast, "what ever made you swing round so sudden and want me to marry Eliph', after objectin' so long?"

Her father looked at Eliph' slyly and chuckled.

"Eggs," he said. "I fooled you that time, Sally. I knowed when I said to go ahead that Eliph' has to have eggs for breakfast. Doc Weaver told me so."

THE END