ar for expenses an'
build me up into a fat man with indigestion an' liver-complaint. I
served an injunction on him.

"Another man has tried to make me the lifelong slave of a silver
service. He'd gone down to Fifth Avenue an' ordered it, an' I
suppose it would 'a' cost thousands. Tried to sneak it on me. Can
ye think o' anything meaner? It would 'a' cost me a pretty penny
for insurance an' storage the rest o' my life, an' then think of
our--ahem--our poor children! Why, it would be as bad as a
mortgage debt. Every time I left home I would have worried about
that silver service; every time the dog barked at night I would
have trembled in my bed for the safety o' the silver service; every
time we had company I would have been afraid that somebody was
goin' to scratch the silver service; an' when I saw a stranger in
town, I would have said to myself: 'Ah, ha! it may be that he has
heard of our silver service an' has come to steal it.' I would
have begun to regard my servants an' many other people with dread
an' suspicion. Why, once I knew a man who had a silver service,
an' they carried it up three nights to the attic every night for
fifty years. They figured that they'd walked eleven hundred miles
up an' down stairs with the silver service in their hands. The
thought that they couldn't take it with 'em hastened an' embittered
their last days. Then the heirs learned that it wasn't genuine
after all.

"Of course, I put another injunction upon that man. 'If we've ever
done anything to you, forgive us,' I said, 'but please do not
cripple us with gold or silver.'"

He stopped and put his hand upon my shoulder and continued:

"My young friend, if you would make us a gift, I wish it might be
something that will give us pleasure an' not trouble, something
that money cannot buy an' thieves cannot steal--your love an' good
wishes to be ours as long as you live an' we live--at least. We
shall need no token o' that but your word an' conduct."

I assured him of all he asked for with a full heart.

"Should I come dressed?" was my query.

"Dressed, yes, but not dressed up," he answered. "Neither white
neckties nor rubber boots will be required."

"How are Mr. and Mrs. Bill?"

"Happier than ever," said he. "Incidentally they've learned that
life isn't all a joke, for one of those little brownies led them to
the gate of the great mystery an' they've begun to look through it
an' are' wiser folks. Two other wom