.

"However in the world," said Old Man Smith, "did you get such a
perfectly hideous name as Mehetabelle Euphemia?"

The Post Master's wife was madder than Scat! She wrung her hands. She
snapped her thumbs! She crackled her finger-joints!

"Never--_Never_," she said had she been "so insulted!"

"U-m-m-m--exactly what I thought," said Old Man Smith. "Now just
when--if you can remember, was the last time that you felt you'd never
been so insulted before?"

"Insulted?" screamed the Post Master's Wife. "Why, I haven't been so
insulted as this since two weeks ago last Saturday when I was out in my
back yard under the Mulberry Tree dyeing my old white dress peach-pink!
And the Druggist's Wife came along and asked me if I didn't think I was
just a little bit too old to be wearing peach-pink?--_Me_--_Too Old?
Me?_" screamed the Post Master's Wife.

"U-m-m," said Old Man Smith. "Pink, you say? Pink?--A little powdered
Cochineal, I suppose? And a bit of Cream o' Tartar? And more than a bit
of Alum? It's a pretty likely combination to make the fingers
slippery.--And a lady what crackles her finger-joints so every time
she's mad,--and snaps her thumbs--and?--Yes! Under the Mulberry Tree is
a _very Probable Place_!--One dollar, please!" said Old Man Smith.

And when the Grocer's Nephew got suspended from college for sitting up
too late at night and getting headaches, and came to spend a month with
his Uncle and couldn't find his green plaid overcoat when it was time to
go home he was perfectly positive that somebody had borrowed it from the
store! Or that he'd dropped it out of the delivery wagon working
over-time! Or that he'd left it at the High School Social!

But Old Man Smith found it for him just by glancing at his purple socks!
And his plaid necktie. And his plush waistcoat.

"Oh, yes, of course, it's perfectly possible," said Old Man Smith, "that
you dropped it from the basket of a balloon on your way to a Missionary
Meeting.--But have you looked in the Young Widow Gayette's back hall?
'Bout three pegs from the door?--Where the shadows are fairly
private?--One dollar, please!" said Old Man Smith.

And when the Old Preacher lost the Hymn Book that George Washington had
given his grandfather, everybody started to take up the floor of the
church to see if it had fallen down through a crack in the pulpit!

But Old Man Smith sent a boy running to beg 'em not to tear down the
church till they'd looked in the Old Lawyer