ulgar, faded. On the floor was an old ingrain carpet full of patches
and spattered with ink stains. A blue-bottle fly buzzed and butted his
head against the walls, and through the open casement hummed the traffic
of the busy little town.

Nothing could have been more expressive of triumph and delight than the
face of the quack. Whenever his feelings were particularly bland and
expansive, he had a way of taking the ends of his enormous moustache and
twirling them between his spatulate thumbs and fingers. He did this
now, and twisted them until the coarse hairs could be heard grating
against each other.

"Well, well!" he said, "so you could not resist the temptation? Ha! ha!
ha! No wonder! It's not every young fellow behind the p-p-plow-tail that
has a fortune thrust under his nose. Shows your g-g-good sense. I was
right. I always am. I knew you were too bright a man to hide your light
under a half b-b-bushel of a village like that. In those seven-by-nine
towns, all the sap dries out of men, and before they are forty they
begin to rattle around like peas in a p-p-pod. In such places young men
are never anything but milk sops, and old men anything but
b-b-bald-headed infants! You needed to see the world, young man. You
required a teacher. You have put yourself into good hands, and if you
stay with me you shall wear d-d-diamonds."

"Whatever the results may be, I have determined to make the experiment,"
said David, shrugging his shoulders.

"Right you are. But what b-b-brought you round? You were as stiff as a
ramrod when I left you."

"Circumstances over which I had no control, and which I want to forget
as soon as possible. My old life has ended and I have come to seek a new
one."

"A new life? That's good. Well--we will show it to you, P-P-Pepeeta and
I! We will show you."

"The sooner the better. What am I to do?"

"Not too fast! There are times when it is better to g-g-go slow, as the
snail said to the lightning. We must make a b-b-bargain."

"Make it to suit yourself."

"You d-d-don't expect me to stick to my old offer, I reckon. When I made
it, Mahomet went to the m-m-mountain, and now the mountain comes to
Mahomet; see?"

"Do as you please, I am in no mood to split hairs, nor pennies. All I
ask is a chance to put my foot upon the first round of the ladder and if
I do not get to the top, I shall not hold you responsible," David
replied, dropping the "thees" of his Quaker life, in his determination
to d