r. Opp. "You go back and tell Mrs. Gusty that Mr. Opp says
he's very sorry to have caused her any inconvenience, and he'll send
over immediate and pick up them papers."

"You's kinder skeered of her, too, ain't you?" grinned the ambassador,
holding up one bare, black foot to the stove. "My mammy she sasses back,
but I runs."

"Well, you'd better run now," said Mr. Opp, who resented such insight;
"but, see here, what's that onion for?"

"To 'sorb disease," said the youth, with the air of one who is
promulgating some advanced theory in therapeutics; "hit ketches it 'stid
of you. My pappy weared a' onion fer put-near a whole year, an' hit
'sorbed all de diseases whut was hangin' round, an' nary a one never
teched him. An' one day my pappy he got hongry, an' he et dat dere
onion, an' whut you reckon? He up an' died!"

"Well, you go 'long now," said Mr. Opp, "and tell Mrs. Gusty just
exactly verbatim what I told you. What did you say was your name?"

"Val," said the boy.

Mr. Opp managed to slip a nickel into the dirty little hand without
Nick's seeing him. Nick was rather firm about these things, and
disapproved heartily of Mr. Opp's indiscriminate charities.

"Gimme nudder one an' I'll tell you de rest ob it," whispered Val on the
door-step.

Mr. Opp complied.

"Valentine Day Johnson," he announced with pride; then pocketing his
prize, he vanished around the corner of the house, forgetting his office
of plenipotentiary in his sudden accession of wealth.

Once more peace settled on the office, and Mr. Opp was engrossed in an
article on "The Greatest Petroleum Proposition South of the Mason and
Dixon Line," when an ominous, wheezing cough announced the arrival of
Mr. Tucker. This was an unexpected catastrophe, for Mr. Tucker's day for
spending the morning at the office was Saturday, when he came in to pay
for his paper. It seemed rather an unkind trick of Fate's that he should
have been permitted to arrive a day too soon.

The old gentleman drew up a chair to the stove, then deliberately
removed his overcoat and gloves.

It was when he took off his overshoes, however, that Mr. Opp and Nick
exchanged looks of despair. They had a signal code which they habitually
employed when storms swept the office, but in a calm like this they were
powerless.

"Mighty sorry to hear about that uprisin' in Guatemala," said Mr.
Tucker, who took a vivid interest in foreign affairs, but remained quite
neutral about questions at