still held a traveling bag. "Just now," he
added, "I am hunting a lodging."

"Hunting a lodging? Why! I thought you were a fixture with Marm
Parraday," Janice said.

"I thought so, too. But it's got too strong for me down there.
Besides, it is a rule of the Railroad Company that we shall find board,
if possible, where no liquor is sold. I had a room over the bar and it
is too noisy for me at night."

"Marm Parraday will be sorry to lose you, Mr. Bowman," Janice said.
"Isn't it dreadful that they should have taken up the selling of liquor
there?"

"Bad thing," the young civil engineer replied, promptly. "I'm sorry
for Marm Parraday. Lem ought to be kicked for ever getting the
license," he added vigorously.

"Dear me, Mr. Bowman," sighed Janice. "I wish everybody thought as you
do. Polktown needs reforming."

"What! Again?" cried the young man, laughing suddenly. Then he added:
"I expect, if that is so, you will have to start the reform, Miss
Janice. And--and you'd better start it with your friend, Hopewell
Drugg. Really, they are making a fool of him around the Inn--and he
doesn't even know it."

"Oh, Mr. Bowman! what do you mean?" called Janice after him; but the
young man had picked up his bag and was marching away, so that he did
not hear her question. Before she could start her engine he had turned
into a side street.

She ran back up Hillside Avenue in good season for dinner. The potato
patch was plowed and Marty had gone downtown on an errand. Janice
backed the car into the garage and went upstairs to her room to change
her dress for dinner. She was there when Marty came boisterously into
the kitchen.

"My goodness! what's the matter with you, Marty Day?" asked his mother
shrilly. "What's happened?"

"It's Nelson Haley," the boy said, and Janice heard him plainly, for
the door at the foot of the stairs was ajar. "It's awful! They are
going to arrest him!"

"What do you mean, Marty Day? Be you crazy?" Mrs. Day demanded.

"What's this? One o' your cheap jokes?" asked the boy's father, who
chanced to be in the kitchen, too.

"Guess Nelson Haley don't think it's a joke," said the boy, his voice
still shaking. "I just heard all about it. There ain't many folks
know it yet----"

"Stop that!" cried his mother. "You tell us plain what Mr. Haley's
done."

"Ain't done nothin', of course. But they _say_ he has," Marty stoutly
maintained.

"Then what do they accuse him of?" qu