tened between two trees near the wall. An' there
they set, a-lookin' steady at us with their four little eyes, like four
empty thimbles.

"'You appear to be goin' away,' says Mrs. Jackson.

"'Yes,' says Jone from the top of the wall. We're a-goin' to take a
slight stroll outside, this salu-brious evenin'.'

"'Do you think,' says she, 'that the United States Bank would be open
this time of day?'

"'Oh no,' says Jone, 'the banks all close at three o'clock. It's a good
deal after that now.'

"'But if I told the officers who I was, wouldn't that make a
difference?' says she. 'Wouldn't they go down an' open the bank?'

"'Not much,' says Jone, givin' a pull which brought me right up to the
top o' the wall an' almost clean down the other side, with one jerk. 'I
never knowed no officers that would do that. But,' says he, a kind o'
shuttin' his eyes so that she shouldn't see he was lyin', 'we'll talk
about that when we come back.'

"'If you see that team of little oxen,' says the big man, 'send 'em
'round to the front gate.'

"'All right,' says Jone; an' he let me down the outside of the wall as
if I had been a bag o' horse-feed.

"'But if the bank isn't open you can't pay for it when it does come,' we
heard the old lady a-sayin' as we hurried off.

"We didn't lose no time agoin' down to that station, an' it's lucky we
didn't, for a train for the city was comin' jus' as we got there, an' we
jumped aboard without havin' no time to buy tickets. There wasn't many
people in our car, an we got a seat together.

"'Now then,' says Jone, as the cars went abuzzin' along, 'I feel as if
I was really on a bridal-trip, which I mus' say I didn't at that there
asylum.'

"An' then I said: 'I should think not,' an' we both bust out a-laughin',
as well we might, feelin' sich a change of surroundin's.

"'Do you think,' says somebody behind us, when we'd got through
laughin', 'that if I was to send a boy up to the cashier he would either
come down or send me the key of the bank?'

"We both turned aroun' as quick as lightnin', an' if there wasn't them
two lunertics in the seat behind us!

"It nearly took our breaths away to see them settin' there, staring at
us with their thimble eyes, an' a-wearin' their little straw hats, both
alike.

"'How on the livin' earth did you two got here?' says I, as soon as I
could speak.

"'Oh, we come by the same way you come--by the tem-per-ary stairs,' says
Mrs. Jackson. 'We thought if it was