ain't going
to make any break--Old Man Smith taught her a few things--or maybe she
learned it instinctive from her ma. Her ma was a Maryland Janney. They
pretty near knew. And yet she told me---- Oh, shucks, Curly!"

"Well, what did she say?"

"She says she met Old Lady Wisner fair out on the sidewalk one morning
and she was going to speak to her; they was both of them going down to
their cars, which was standing side by side on the street. The old lady,
she turns up her nose, such as there was of it, and she looks the other
way. That hurt my girl a good deal. You know she ain't got a unkind
thought in her heart for nobody or nothing on earth. She never was broke
to be afraid of nothing or expect nothing but good of nobody--you and me
taught her that, didn't we, Curly? And that old cat wouldn't look at my
girl! Well, Curly, that's what I mean when I say there is some games
that seems hard to play. Don't a woman get the worst of it every way of
the deck, anyhow?"

"Well now," says I, "ain't there no way we can break in there
comfortable like?"

"I don't see how," says he, shaking his head.

"Why can't we kill their dog?" says I. "Something friendly, just to
start things going."

"That ain't no good," says he. "We tried it. Bonnie Bell already killed
two of their dogs with her new electric brougham. You see, she had to go
out and try it for herself, for she says she can ride anything that has
hair on it, even if it's only curled hair in the cushions. First thing
you know, the Wisner dog--pug nose it was, with its tail curled
tight--it goes out on the road, acting like it owned the whole street,
same as its folks does. Well, right then him and Bonnie Bell's new
electric mixes it. The dog got the worst of it.

"Look-a-here, Curly," says he after a while, and pulls a square piece of
paper outen his pocket. "Here's what we got in return for that--before
Bonnie Bell had time to say she was sorry. The old lady wrote, for once:

Mrs. David Abraham Wisner requests that the people living next door
to her exercise greater care in the operation of their vehicles, as
the animal lost through the criminal carelessness of one of these
people was of great value.

"Ain't that hell?" says he. "Cheerful, ain't it? No name signed to
it--nothing! But you can see from that just how they felt. That was
three days ago. They got a new dog. Well, this morning Bonnie Bell
killed that one!

"The trouble with them do