for the milkman and five cents for me to buy
hokey-pokey with--but she didn't say that," the elf concluded, with a
hopeful but honest grin.

Finch shelled out the money, counting it twice, but I noticed that the
total sum that the small girl received was one dollar and four cents.

"That's the right kind of a law," remarked Finch, as he carefully broke
some of the stitches of my hatband so that it would assuredly come off
within a few days--"the law of supply and demand. But they've both got
to work together. I'll bet," he went on, with his dry smile, "she'll get
jelly beans with that nickel--she likes 'em. What's supply if there's no
demand for it?"

"What ever became of the King?" I asked, curiously.

"Oh, I might have told you," said Finch. "That was Shane came in and
bought the tickets. He came back with me, and he's on the force now."

BURIED TREASURE

There are many kinds of fools. Now, will everybody please sit still
until they are called upon specifically to rise?

I had been every kind of fool except one. I had expended my
patrimony, pretended my matrimony, played poker, lawn-tennis, and
bucket-shops--parted soon with my money in many ways. But there remained
one rule of the wearer of cap and bells that I had not played. That was
the Seeker after Buried Treasure. To few does the delectable furor come.
But of all the would-be followers in the hoof-prints of King Midas none
has found a pursuit so rich in pleasurable promise.

But, going back from my theme a while--as lame pens must do--I was a
fool of the sentimental sort. I saw May Martha Mangum, and was hers.
She was eighteen, the color of the white ivory keys of a new piano,
beautiful, and possessed by the exquisite solemnity and pathetic
witchery of an unsophisticated angel doomed to live in a small, dull,
Texas prairie-town. She had a spirit and charm that could have enabled
her to pluck rubies like raspberries from the crown of Belgium or any
other sporty kingdom, but she did not know it, and I did not paint the
picture for her.

You see, I wanted May Martha Mangum for to have and to hold. I wanted
her to abide with me, and put my slippers and pipe away every day in
places where they cannot be found of evenings.

May Martha's father was a man hidden behind whiskers and spectacles. He
lived for bugs and butterflies and all insects that fly or crawl or buzz
or get down your back or in the butter. He was an etymologist, or words
to that eff