bein' lonesome," remarked her brother with a grin.

"An' he hain't had no time to himself!" she protested. "I don't believe
you've made up your mind yet whether you're goin' to like him, an' I
don't believe he'll _stay_ anyway."

"I've told more 'n forty-leven times," said Mr. Harum, looking up over
his paper, "that I thought we was goin' to make a hitch of it, an' he
cert'nly hain't said nuthin' 'bout leavin', an' I guess he won't fer a
while, tavern or no tavern. He's got a putty stiff upper lip of his own,
I reckon," David further remarked, with a short laugh, causing Mrs.
Bixbee to look up at him inquiringly, which look the speaker answered
with a nod, saying, "Me an' him had a little go-round to-day."

"You hain't had no _words_, hev ye?" she asked anxiously.

"Wa'al, we didn't have what ye might call _words_. I was jest tryin' a
little experiment with him."

"Humph," she remarked, "you're alwus tryin' exper'ments on somebody, an'
you'll be liable to git ketched at it some day."

"Exceptin' on you," said David. "You don't think I'd try any experiments
on you, do ye?"

"Me!" she cried. "You're at me the hull endurin' time, an' you know it."

"Wa'al, but Polly," said David insinuatingly, "you don't know how
int'restin' you _be_."

"Glad you think so," she declared, with a sniff and a toss of the head.
"What you ben up to with Mr. Lenox?"

"Oh, nuthin' much," replied Mr. Harum, making a feint of resuming his
reading.

"Be ye goin' to tell me, or--air ye too _'shamed_ on't?" she added with
a little laugh, which somewhat turned the tables on her teasing brother.

"Wa'al, I laid out to try an' read this paper," he said, spreading it
out on his lap, "but," resignedly, "I guess 't ain't no use. Do you know
what a count'fit bill is?" he asked.

"I dunno 's I ever see one," she said, "but I s'pose I do. They're agin
the law, ain't they?"

"The's a number o' things that's agin the law," remarked David dryly.

"Wa'al?" ejaculated Mrs. Bixbee after a moment of waiting.

"Wa'al," said David, "the' ain't much to tell, but it's plain I don't
git no peace till you git it out of me. It was like this: The young
feller's took holt everywhere else right off, but handlin' the money
bothered him consid'able at fust. It was slow work, an' I c'd see it
myself; but he's gettin' the hang on't now. Another thing I expected
he'd run up agin was count'fits. The' ain't so very many on 'em round
now-a-days, but the' is now an'