he notice it any herself? Well, some!

"A triumph!" gurgles the saleslady, lookin' from one to the other of us,
tryin' to figure out who she ought to play to.

"It's a game combination, all right," says I, lookin' wise.

"I only wish----" begins Daggett, and then swallows the rest of it. In a
minute he steps up and says it'll do, and that the young lady is to pick
out one for herself now.

"Oh, how perfectly sweet of you!" says Miss Rooney, slippin' him a smile
that should have had him clear through the ropes. "But if I am to have
any, why not this?" and she balances the heliotrope lid on her fingers,
lookin' it over yearnin' and tender. "It just suits me, doesn't it?"

Then there's more of the coy business, aimed straight at Daggett. But
Miss Rooney don't quite put it across.

"That's going out to Iowy with me," says he, prompt and decided.

"Oh!" says Miss Rooney, and she proceeds to pick out a white straw with a
green ostrich feather a yard long. She was still lookin' puzzled, though,
as we put her into the cab and started her back to the barber shop.

"Must have set you back near a hundred, didn't they?" says I, as Daggett
and I parts on the corner.

"Almost," says he. "But it's worth it. Marthy would have looked mighty
stylish in that purple one. Yes, yes! And when I get back to South Forks,
the first thing I do will be to carry it up on the knoll, box and all,
and leave it there. I wonder if she'll know, eh?"

There wa'n't any use in my tellin' him what I thought, though. He wa'n't
talkin' to me, anyway. There was a kind of a far off, batty look in his
eyes as he stood there on the corner, and a drop of brine was tricklin'
down one side of his nose. So we never says a word, but just shakes
hands, him goin' his way, and me mine.

"Chee!" says Swifty Joe, when I shows up, along about three o'clock, "you
must have been puttin' away a hearty lunch!"

"It wa'n't that kept me," says I. "I was helpin' hand a late one to
Marthy."

CHAPTER II

HOW MAIZIE CAME THROUGH

Then again, there's other kinds from other States, and no two of 'em
alike. They float in from all quarters, some on ten-day excursions, and
some with no return ticket. And, of course, they're all jokes to us at
first, while we never suspicion that all along we may be jokes to them.

And say, between you and me, we're apt to think, ain't we, that all the
rapid motion in the world gets its start right here in New York? Well,
that's t