like a shot. He's awfully sharp, Rosey."

"But if he is sharp, father, and he really wants to buy the ship,"
returned Rosey, thoughtfully, "it's only because he knows it's valuable
property, and not because he likes it as we do. He can't take that
value away even if we don't sell it to him, and all the while we have
the comfort of the dear old Pontiac, don't you see?"

This exhaustive commercial' reasoning was so sympathetic to Mr. Nott's
instincts that he accepted it as conclusive. He, however, deemed it
wise to still preserve his practical attitude. "But that don't make it
pay by the month, Rosey. Suthin' must be done. I'm thinking I'll clean
out that photographer."

"Not just after he's taken such a pretty view of the cabin front of the
Pontiac from the street, father! No! He's going to give us a copy, and
put the other in a shop window in Montgomery Street."

"That's so," said Mr. Nott, musingly; "it's no slouch of an
advertisement. 'The Pontiac,' the property of A. Nott, Esq., of St. Jo,
Missouri. Send it on to your aunt Phoebe; sorter make the old folks
open their eyes--oh? Well, seem' he's been to some expense fittin' up
an entrance from the other street, we'll let him slide. But as to that
d----d old Frenchman Ferrers, in the next loft, with his stuck-up airs
and high-falutin style, we must get quit of him; he's regularly gouged
me in that ere horsehair spekilation."

"How can you say that, father!" said Rosey, with a slight increase of
color. "It was your own offer. You know those bales of curled horsehair
were left behind by the late tenant to pay his rent. When Mr. De
Ferrieres rented the room afterwards, you told him you'd throw them in
in the place of repairs and furniture. It was your own offer."

"Yes, but I didn't reckon ther'd ever be a big price per pound paid for
the darned stuff for sofys and cushions and sich."

"How do you know _he_ knew it, father?" responded Rosey.

"Then why did he look so silly at first, and then put on airs when I
joked him about it, eh?"

"Perhaps he didn't understand your joking, father. He's a foreigner,
and shy and proud, and--not like the others. I don't think he knew what
you meant then, any more than he believed he was making a bargain
before. He may be poor, but I think he's been--a--a--gentleman."

The young girl's animation penetrated even Mr. Nott's slow
comprehension. Her novel opposition, and even the prettiness it
enhanced, gave him a dull premonition