ce. I'm in a position to give this town a
public liberry worth maybe forty dollars. Now, do you mean to say to
me--do you mean--" He gulped, unable to proceed. Hudgens nodded.
McGinnis let fall his hand from the counter, turned and silently left
the place.

He moved up the street to the adobe where the barber had his shop. The
barber was gloomily sitting inside, waiting. McGinnis entered, and
looked about him with the ease of one revisiting familiar scenes.

In a case upon the wall were rows of shaving mugs, now dusty and
abandoned, mute witnesses of a former era of glory. Indeed, they
remained an historical record of earlier life in Heart's Desire.

Once there had been rivalry between McGinnis and Tom Redmond for the
affections of a widow who kept a boarding-house in Heart's Desire, the
same long since departed. There came by express one day, addressed to
Tom Redmond, a shaving mug of great beauty and considerable size,
whereon the name of Tom Redmond, handsomely emblazoned, led all the
rest. The fame of this work of art so spread abroad that Tom Redmond,
as befitted one who had attained social distinction, became the
recipient of increased smiles from the widow aforesaid. McGinnis bided
his time. Thirty days later, there arrived by stage for him a shaving
mug of such stature and such exceeding art as cast that of Tom Redmond
completely in the shade! Thenceforth the widow smiled upon McGinnis.
Tom Redmond, unable to endure this humiliation, and in the limitation
of things wholly unable to raise the McGinnis ante in shaving mugs, was
obliged to leave the town. McGinnis hung upon the handle of the
Redmond mug a goodly card bearing the legend, "Gone, but not
forgotten." Shortly after that McGinnis himself left town. Alas! at
the instance of the widow the barber hung upon the McGinnis mug a
similar card; it having appeared that McGinnis had emigrated without
paying either his board bill or his barber's bill.

This evidence of his early delinquency now confronted McGinnis as he
stepped into the shop for the first time in these years. He regarded
it with displeasure. "Take it off," said he to the barber, sternly.
"I paid the widdy in Butte, two years ago. As for yourself, I have
come six hundred miles to pay my bill to you. Take it out of that."
He presented his heavy button of gold.

The barber protested that he could not make change on this basis, but
cheerfully extended the credit. He was glad to