listen to me, an' I'll fix you so you won't have
_any_ rent to pay. That lion's cage, just at it stands, with the door
openin' on the sidewalk, would make the dandiest shoe-shop in seven
States. It's plenty wide and long; it is well-roofed with painted
sheet-iron, an' would be as tight in cold weather as a jar of preserves.
It faces every street that leads into the square, and you'd get twice as
much custom there as you do away back here next to this little pig-trail
alley.' By gum, what she said struck me like a bolt of lightnin'. I'd
examined the cage, as everybody else in town has, I reckon, an' I knowed
all about it, so I up an' axed 'er what she'd paid you for it, an' she
kind o' dodged my question.

"'Has that got anything to do with it?' she axed, an' I told 'er, I did,
that I heard you was offerin' it fer twenty-five dollars. That seemed to
set 'er studyin' fer a minute, an' then she said:

"'To tell you the truth, Mr. Woods, that _is_ all I had to pay, but I
got it, you mought say, at that figure by the very skin o' my teeth. In
a thoughtless moment Alf Henley said he'd take twenty-five, and,
knowing what it was railly worth, I yanked out the money on the spot and
laid it down. He's a gentleman'--she said--'Alf Henley is a plumb
gentleman, but he tried his level best to back down. Jim Cahews will
testify that I was actually obliged to leave the money on the counter
and walk out before he'd give in.' Is that so, Alf?"

"I am obliged to say it is, Seth," Henley answered, flushing. "Some'n
like that actually _did_ take place."

"I didn't think she'd fib about it," Woods went on, "and I finally axed
her what she'd take, an' she said nothin' less than fifty dollars cash
down would interest her, as she had a winter cloak to lay in, an' shoes
for three women, an' what not.

"I told her fifty looked purty steep, but she throwed herself back an'
laughed hearty. She said my rent in the shop fer one year alone would
pay it, and after that I'd be a free man. She said in the summer I could
prop up both these flap sides, to cut off the sun, an' the wind would
blow clean through. She said the very oddity of the thing would draw
trade, that I could have the picture of the lion painted out an' a big
boot an' shoe put in place of it. Oh, I can't begin to tell you all she
said. She'd 'a' been talkin' till now if I hadn't traded: Besides,
betwixt me'n you, she give me a scare; you see I was afraid the thing
would slip throug