f her speeches. It seemed to suggest things to the
old sinner.

"Huh," he grunted; "I riccollect ye now. Yo' pap was a Consadine, but
you're old Virgil Passmore's grandchild. One of the borryin' Passmores,"
he added, staring coolly at Johnnie. "Virge was a fine, upstandin' old
man. You've got the favour of him--if you wasn't a gal."

He evidently shared Schopenhauer's distaste for "the low-statured,
wide-hipped, narrow-shouldered sex."

The girls about the table were all listening eagerly. Johnnie had the
sensation of a freshman who has walked out on the campus too
well dressed.

"Virge was a great beau in his day," continued Pap, reminiscently. "He
liked to wear good clothes, too. I mind how he borried Abner Wimberly's
weddin' coat and wore it something like ten year--showed it off fine--it
fitted him enough sight better than it ever fitted little old Ab. Then
he comes back to Wimberly at the end of so long a time with the buttons.
He says, says he, 'Looks like that thar cloth yo' coat was made of
wasn't much 'count, Ab,' says he. 'I think Jeeters cheated ye on it. But
the buttons was good. The buttons wore well. And them I'm bringin' back,
'caze you may have use for 'em, and I have none, now the coat's gone.
Also, what I borry I return, as everybody knows.' That was your
granddaddy."

There was a tremendous giggling about the board as the old man made an
end. Johnnie herself smiled, though her face was scarlet. She had no
words to tell her tormentor that the borrowing trait in her tribe which
had earned them the name of the borrowing Passmores proceeded not from
avarice, which ate into Pap Himes's very marrow, but from its reverse
trait of generosity. She knew vaguely that they would have shared with a
neighbour their last bite or dollar, and had thus never any doubt of
being shared with nor any shame in the asking.

"Yes," pursued Himes, surveying Johnnie chucklingly, "I mind when you
was born. Has your Uncle Pros found his silver mine yet?"

"My mother has often told me how good you and Mrs. Bence was to us when
I was little," answered Johnnie mildly. "No, sir, Uncle Pros hasn't
found his silver mine yet--but he's still a-hunting for it."

The reply appeared to delight Himes. He laughed immoderately, even as
Buckheath had done.

"I'll bet he is," he agreed. "Pros Passmore's goin' to hunt that there
silver mine till he finds another hole in the ground about six feet long
and six feet deep--that's what he's