fence and followed, carrying his hoe.

"Look here, you! There ain't no such business."

"Send for me next time you have a well turned wrong side out and I'll
prove it."

"You're a tramp."

Farr sauntered on.

"You're a tramp, and here's what we are doing to tramps in this county
right now!"

Beyond them in the highway men were delving with shovels and hacking
with mattocks. The men wore blue drilling overalls, obtrusively new, and
their faces were pasty pale.

"We have taken 'em out of jail and put 'em doing honest work," said the
farmer. He pointed to guards who were marching to and fro with rifles
in the hook of their arms. "Here's where you belong. I'm a constable of
this town. I arrest you."

The young man halted. His smile became provokingly compassionate as he
stared down at the nickel badge the farmer was tapping.

"So you represent the law, do you?" inquired Farr.

"I do."

"It's too bad you don't know more about the law, then. I have neither
solicited alms, trespassed on private property, begged food, nor
committed crime in your little kingdom, my good and great three-tailed
bashaw. Here is a coin to clear the law." He exhibited a silver piece.
"I am sorry I cannot remain here and help you mend your ways--they seem
to need it!"

He went on past the sullen gang of pick and shovel, treading the middle
of the broad turnpike.

"Ain't that a tramp?" asked one of the guards.

"I don't know what he is," confessed the farmer.

The man who called himself Farr turned a corner and came upon the same
automobile which had overtaken and passed him, contemptuously kicking
its dust over him, a few minutes before he arrived at the farmer's
fence.

A rear tire was flat and a young man who was smartly attired in gray
was smacking gloved hands together and cursing the lumps of a
jail-bird-built road and the guilty negligence of a garage-man who had
forgotten to put a lift-jack back into the kit. Two women stood beside
the car and looked upon the young man's helplessness.

"Enter tortoise, second scene of the ancient drama, 'The Tortoise and
the Hare,'" Walter Farr informed himself.

His amused brown eyes noted the young man was obviously flabby.

"Here, you! Help me prop up this axle," commanded the charioteer.

"You do not need help," suggested Farr. "You need somebody who can do
the whole job."

The glance he gave the young man, up and down, conveyed his full
meaning.

"Well, I must say that's sauc