ntin' to badger, Doc Weaver!" retorted Mr. Getz. "What
fur did you lie to me about that there piece entitled 'Iwanhoe'?"

"You and your 'Iwanhoe' be blowed! Are you tormentin' this here kid
about THAT yet? A body'd think you'd want to change that subjec', Jake
Getz!"

"Not till I find from you, Doc, whose that there novel-book was, and
why you tole me it was Elviny Dinkleberger's!"

"That's easy tole," responded the doctor. "That there book belonged
to--"

"No, Doc, no, no!" came a pleading cry from Tillie. "Don't tell, Doc,
please don't tell!"

"Never you mind, Tillie, THAT'S all right. Look here, Jake Getz!" The
doctor turned his sharp little eyes upon the face of the father grown
dark with anger at his child's undutiful interference. "You're got this
here little girl worked up to the werge of a RElapse! I tole you she
must be kep' quiet and not worked up still!"

"All right. I'm leavin' HER alone--till she's well oncet! You just
answer fur YOURself and tell why you lied to me!"

"Well, Jake, it was this here way. That there book belonged to ME and
Tillie lent it off of me. That's how! Ain't Tillie?"

Mr. Getz stared in stupefied wonder, while Mrs. Getz, too, looked on
with a dull interest, as she leaned her back against the sink and dried
her hands upon her apron.

As for Tillie, a great throb of relief thrilled through her as she
heard the doctor utter this Napoleonic lie--only to be followed the
next instant by an overwhelming sense of her own wickedness in thus
conniving with fraud. Abysses of iniquity seemed to yawn at her feet,
and she gazed with horror into their black depths. How could she ever
again hold up her head.

But--Miss Margaret, at least, was safe from the School Board's wrath
and indignation, and how unimportant, compared with that, was her own
soul's salvation!

"Why didn't Tillie say it was yourn?" Mr. Getz presently found voice to
ask.

"I tole her if she left it get put out I am addicted to novel readin',"
said the doctor glibly, and with evident relish, "it might spoil my
practice some. And Tillie she's that kind-hearted she was sorry far me!"

"And so you put her up to say it was Elviny's! You put her up to tell
lies to her pop!"

"Well, I never thought you 'd foller it up any, Jake, and try to get
ELVINY into trouble."

"Doc, I always knowed you was a blasPHEmer and that you didn't have no
religion. But I thought you had anyhow morals. And I didn't think, now,
you was a c