in fear and
trembling, and, taking a couple of her firmest friends, she led
Policeman Costello down to Clayt's restaurant at midnight, and, sure
enough, there was a light in the back part. Costello burst open the
door, and when they all rushed down on the scene of the crime, they
found Clayt and half a dozen of us manfully smoking up a box of stogies
which a slick traveling man had unloaded on him. Mrs. Saunders insisted
that crime was about to be committed and got so excited that she
repeated Clayt's exact words--in the middle of which a great light came
to her, and she said she was going home.

"I think you had better," said Clayt, "and I'll tell you something more.
You listen to other people's affairs more than is good for you."

But she hasn't since.

Of course you don't have these troubles. But whenever I see New York
people harboring telephones in their homes which absolutely decline to
be civil until you feed them five cents, I think of our Homeburg
blessings and am content. Six dollars a year buys a telephone at home,
and about the only families which haven't telephones are a few widows
who live frugally on nothing a year, and old Mr. Stephens, who has one
hundred thousand dollars loaned out on mortgages and spends half an hour
picking out the biggest eggs when he buys half a dozen. There isn't a
farm within ten miles which isn't connected with the town, and while the
desk 'phone is a novelty with us and we still have to grind away at a
handle to get Central, we can put just as much conversation into the
transmitter and take just as much out of the receiver as if we were
connected with a million telephones. Our Homeburg 'phones are
old-fashioned; and the lines sound as if eleven million bees were
holding indignation meetings on them, but they have made a big family
out of three whole counties, and I guess they will take care of us all
right--so long as Carrie holds out and we can keep that Sam fellow where
he belongs.

XI

A HOMEBURG SCHOOL ELECTION

_Where Woman is Allowed to Vote and Man Has To_

Well, Jim, you've taken me to see a great many wonderful sights in this
municipal monstrosity of yours, but I don't believe one of them has
interested me as much as this parade. I've worn three fat men on my toes
for an hour to get a chance to watch it, but it was worth the agony.
Think of it--at home we are doing well to get an attendance of two
thousand at a fire. Here in New York are several hundr