t is quite a
curiosity to see how they make the great horns, rough and ugly as they
are, into all sorts of dainty combs and knicknacks."

"What kind of horns, uncle?"

"Horns from all parts of the country, Paul. This shop alone uses nearly a
million horns a year, and they come in car-loads from Canada, from the
great West, from Texas, from South America, and from the cattle-yards
about Boston and other Eastern cities."

"You don't mean the horns of common cattle?"

"Yes, Paul; all kinds of horns are used, though some are much tougher and
better than others. The cattle raised in the Eastern, Middle and Western
States furnish the best horns, and there is the curious difference that
the horns of six cows are worth no more than those of a single ox. Many
millions of horn combs are made every year in Massachusetts; perhaps more
than in all the rest of the country. If you like we will go down after
breakfast and have a look at the comb-makers."

Paul was pleased with the idea, though he would much rather have passed
the day as at first proposed. He was not at all sorry that he had broken
up his comb, and even went so far as to cut up the back with his knife,
wondering all the while how the smooth, flat, semi-transparent comb had
been produced from a rough, round, opaque horn.

By and by a mail stage came rattling along, without any passengers, and
Mr. Sanford took his nephew aboard. They stopped before a low, straggling
pile of buildings, located upon both sides of a sluggish looking race-way
which supplied the water power, covered passage-ways connecting different
portions of the works.

"Presently, just over this knoll," said his uncle, "you will see a big
pile of horns, as they are unloaded from the cars."

[Illustration: MY LADY'S TOILET.]

They moved around the knoll, and there lay a monstrous pile of horns
thrown indiscriminately together.

"Really there are not so many as we should think," said Mr. Sanford, as
Paul expressed his astonishment. "That is only a small portion of the
stock of this shop. I will show you a good many more."

He led the way to a group of semi-detached buildings in rear of the
principal works, and there Paul saw great bins of horns, the different
sizes and varieties carefully assorted, the total number so vast that the
immense pile in the open yard began to look small in contrast.

At one of the bins a boy was loading a wheelbarrow, and when he pushed
his load along a plank track t