at
'cause it ain't all cream--if you was as dead tired as I be this
minute you might talk."

"Well, I'm willing to allow that I am not as hard pushed as you are,"
said the postmaster, with magnanimous humility.

"You'd better. Poor devils, huh! I guess I know what poor devils be,
and the hell they're in. Bet your life I do. Huh!"

"I'm a poor devil 'nough myself, when it comes to that," said Amidon,
"but I reckon you kin speak for yourself when it comes to talkin'
about bein' in hell, Tappan. Fur's I'm concerned, I'm findin' this a
purty comfertable sort of place."

Amidon was a tall man, and he stretched his length luxuriously as he
spoke. Tappan eyed him malignantly. He was not a pleasant-tempered
man, and now he was both weary and impatient of waiting for his turn
with the barber.

"I should think any man might be comfortable, ef he had a wife takin'
boarders to support him, but mebbe if she was to be asked to tell the
truth, she'd tell a different story," he said. Tappan spoke in a tone
of facetious rage, and the others laughed, all except the barber. He
had a curious respect for his landlady's husband.

"Ef a lady has the undisposition to let her husband subside on her
bounty, it is between them twain. Who God has joined together, let no
man set asunder," said he, bombastically, and even the surly milkman,
and Rosenstein under his manipulating razor, when a laugh was
dangerous, laughed. John Flynn, when he waxed didactic, and made use
of large words and phrases, was the comic column of Banbridge.

Amidon, thus defended, chuckled also, albeit rather foolishly, and
slouched to the door. "Guess I'll drop up and git the Sunday paper.
I'll be in later on, John," he mumbled. He had the grace to be
somewhat ashamed both by the attack and by the defence, and was for
edging out, but stopped on the threshold of the door, arrested by
something which the small man said.

"Talkin' about poor devils, there's one man in Banbridge ain't no
poor devil. S'pose you know we've got a J. P. Morgan right amongst
us?"

"Who?" asked the postmaster; and Amidon, directly now the
conversation was thoroughly shifted from himself, returned to his
former place.

"I know who he means," said he, importantly. "Oh, it's the man what's
rented the Ranger place. They say he's a millionaire."

The milkman straightened himself interestedly. "I rather guess he
is," said he. "They take two quarts of cream every morning, and three
quarts of