y, "don't get a quarrel going
over that room."

McAlpin, inextinguishable, turned to Belle: "Look at this: Henry Sawdy
gets into that bathtub. He turns on the water. He goes to sleep.
Every few weeks the ceiling falls on my new pool tables. First and
last, I've had a ton of mortar on 'em. If there was any pressure, I'd
be ruined."

"If there was any pressure," interposed Sawdy, "I wouldn't go to sleep.
Do you know how long it takes to fill your blamed tub?"

McAlpin in violent protest, scratched the gravel with his hobnailed
shoes: "I'll ask you: Am I responsible for the pressure, or the water
company?" Sawdy undisturbed, continued to stroke his heavy mustache.
"The water it takes to cover you, Henry," sputtered McAlpin, "would run
a locomotive from here to Medicine Bend."

"I have to wait till everybody in town goes to bed before I can get a
dew started on the faucet," averred Sawdy. "Sometimes I have to set up
all night to take a bath. Look at the unreasonableness of it, Belle,"
he went on indignantly. "I'm paying this Shylock a dollar and a half a
week for my room--and most of the time, no water."

McAlpin ground his teeth: "No water!" was all he could echo, doggedly.

"Do you know what this row is about, Belle?" demanded Sawdy. "He's
trying to screw me up to a dollar seventy-five for the room. And
everybody on the second floor using my bathtub," continued Sawdy,
calmly.

"_Your_ bathtub," gasped McAlpin. "Well, if you could get title to it
by sleeping in it, it surely would be your tub, Sawdy."

"I don't want your blamed room any longer, anyway," declared Sawdy.
"I'm going to get married."

McAlpin started: "Henry, don't make a blamed fool o' yoursel'."

"I said it," retorted Sawdy, waving him away. "Move on."

"I've had no notice," announced McAlpin, raising his hand. "You'll pay
me my rent to the first of the year. You rented for the full year,
Henry, remember that!" With this indignant warning, McAlpin started
for the barn.

Sawdy followed Belle into the house. He threw his hat on the
living-room table: "Sit down, Belle," he said recklessly. "I want to
talk."

Belle was suspicious. "What about?" she demanded. "You can't room
here, I'll tell you that."

"Now hold your horses a minute--just a minute. Sit down. I know when
a thing needs sugar, don't I? You know when it needs salt, don't you?
Why pay rent in two places? That's what I want to know. Let's hitch
up."

"Stop y