by the families of the sages, had grown so difficult to
accomplish for one of them, Colonel Flitcroft (Colonel in the war with
Mexico), that he had been put to it, indeed, to foot the firing-line
against his wife (a lady of celebrated determination and hale-voiced at
seventy), and to defend the rental of a box which had sheltered but
three missives in four years. Desperation is often inspiration; the
Colonel brilliantly subscribed for the Standard, forgetting to give his
house address, and it took the others just thirteen days to wring his
secret from him. Then the Standard served for all.

Mail-time had come to mean that bright hour when they all got their
feet on the brass rod which protected the sills of the two big windows,
with the steam-radiators sizzling like kettles against the side wall.
Mr. Jonas Tabor, who had sold his hardware business magnificently (not
magnificently for his nephew, the purchaser) some ten years before, was
usually, in spite of the fact that he remained a bachelor at
seventy-nine, the last to settle down with the others, though often the
first to reach the hotel, which he always entered by a side door,
because he did not believe in the treating system. And it was Mr. Eskew
Arp, only seventy-five, but already a thoroughly capable cynic, who,
almost invariably "opened the argument," and it was he who discovered
the sinister intention behind the weather of this particular morning.
Mr. Arp had not begun life so sourly: as a youth he had been proud of
his given name, which had come to him through his mother's family, who
had made it honorable, but many years of explanations that Eskew did
not indicate his initials had lowered his opinion of the intelligence
and morality of the race.

The malevolence of his voice and manner this morning, therefore, when
he shook his finger at the town beyond the windows, and exclaimed, with
a bitter laugh, "Look at it!" was no surprise to his companions. "Jest
look at it! I tell you the devil is mighty smart. Ha, ha! Mighty
smart!"

Through custom it was the duty of Squire Buckalew (Justice of the Peace
in '59) to be the first to take up Mr. Arp. The others looked to him
for it. Therefore, he asked, sharply:

"What's the devil got to do with snow?"

"Everything to do with it, sir," Mr. Arp retorted. "It's plain as day
to anybody with eyes and sense."

"Then I wish you'd p'int it out," said Buckalew, "if you've got either."

"By the Almighty, Squi