nd from head to foot in woollens, the only thing that seemed warm
about him was his glowing pipe and his disturbed temper. He shook his
head at the woman, and again began a stammering recital of his wrongs,
when she cut him short with:

"You're crazy!"

"Grazy? Of I make a foolishness of a fellar like as you do--well, dot's
all right!" and he stood up very straight and puffed great clouds of
smoke past her into her elegant room.

She had got a stolid customer on hand, and she saw it. So she asked him
civilly what he wanted at _her_ door.

"Yust told me vere ish der parn, und I don't trouble you no more."

"Whose barn?"

"Vere der hay goes."

"Hay? What hay? I don't know anything about any hay," she replied,
laughing at his perplexity.

"I shtand here an hour already, und ven I got you up no satisfagtion
comes. Py Shupiter, dot goes like a schwindle!"

He was very mad by this time, and walked back and forth in front of her
door, shaking his fists and gesticulating wildly; and to prevent a
scene, which might cause a collection of the inmates of the building,
she quieted him as much as possible, and ascertained that some obliging
person, more enthusiastic about the amount than the character of some
token of esteem, had taken the trouble to order a load of hay to be
delivered at her number, describing the place, room, and woman so
minutely that there could be no possibility of mistake, where the owner
was to collect all additional charges above two dollars, which had been
paid.

It took Mrs. Winslow a long time to persuade the farmer that she owned
no barn, kept no animals, had no use for hay, and that there had been
some mistake, or that some person had deliberately played a joke upon
_him_, but finally, after a shivering argument of fully fifteen minutes,
and the expenditure of a dollar bill, with the seductive offer that she
would give him ten dollars if he would find and bring to her the man who
ordered the load, her obstinate visitor departed, roundly swearing in
good German that he would have the _Gottferdamter schwindler_ brought up
by der city gourts and hung, to which Mrs. Winslow groaned a hearty
approval as she shut the door of the--to her--desolate room.

If there had previously been any doubts in her mind as to there being a
preconcerted plan to annoy and exasperate her beyond endurance, they
were now entirely removed, and the woman broke down completely, wringing
her hands in mute expression of b