ared Patsy.
"Unless Uncle can get the Saints right away he will lose interest in the
collection, and then he won't care for them at all."

McNutt sighed dismally. Here was a chance to make good money by fleecing
the lambs, yet he was absolutely unable to take advantage of it.

"Ye--ye couldn't use any duck eggs, could ye?" he said, a sudden thought
seeming to furnish him with a brilliant idea.

"Duck eggs?"

"I got the dum-twistedest, extry fine lot o' duck eggs ye ever seen."

"But what can we do with duck eggs?" inquired Beth, wonderingly, while
Patsy and Louise tried hard not to shriek with laughter.

"W'y, set 'em under a hen, an' hatch 'em out."

"Sir," said Beth, "I strongly disapprove of such deceptions. It seems to
me that making a poor hen hatch out ducks, under the delusion that they
are chickens, is one of the most cruel and treacherous acts that
humanity can be guilty of. Imagine the poor thing's feelings when her
children take to water! I'm surprised you could suggest such a wicked
use for duck eggs."

McNutt wiggled his toes again, desperately.

"Can't use any sas'frass roots, can ye?"

"No, indeed; all we crave is the 'Lives of the Saints.'"

"Don't want to buy no land?"

"What have you got to sell?"

"Nuth'n, jest now. But ef ye'll buy I kin git 'most anything."

"Don't go to any trouble on our account, sir; we are quite content with
our splendid farm."

"Shoo! Thet ain't no good."

"Captain Wegg thought it was," answered Louise, quickly seizing this
opening. "Otherwise he would not have built so good a house upon it."

"The Cap'n were plumb crazy," declared the agent, emphatically. "He
didn't want ter farm when he come here; he jest wanted to hide."

The girls exchanged quick glances of intelligence.

"Why?"

"Why?" repeated McNutt. "Thet's a thing what's puzzled us fer years,
miss. Some thinks Wegg were a piret; some thinks he kidnaped thet pretty
wife o' his'n an' took her money; some thinks he tried to rob ol' Will
Thompson, an' Will killed him an' then went crazy hisself. There's all
sorts o' thinks goin' 'round; but who _knows_?"

"Don't you, Mr. McNutt?"

The agent was flattered by the question. As he had said, the Weggs had
formed the chief topic of conversation in Millville for years, and no
one had a more vivid interest in their history than Marshall McMahon
McNutt. He enjoyed gossiping about the Weggs almost as much as he did
selling books.

"I never thought I had