whatever about the premium on it. Perhaps I'd ought to have
mentioned it, but it seemed to me it was his business more'n mine: so I
jest took it as if it was the most natural thing in life, and he went
off. I thought I might as well as not get the premium on it before it
went down the way folks said it was goin' to: so, after dinner, I
harnessed up, and drove down to the post-office,--it was kep' in the
drug-store then, the same as it is now,--and when I handed my gold piece
to the postmaster, which was also the druggist, and said I'd take a
quarter's worth of stamps, and I believed gold was worth a dollar
fifteen just now, he first smelt of it, and then bit it, and then poured
some stuff out'n a bottle onto it, and then handed it back to me with a
pityin' smile that somehow riled me more'n a little, and he says, says
he,--

"'Somebody's fooled you badly, Uncle Jabez. That coin's a counterfeit.
Do you happen to know where you got it?'

"'I know well enough,' I says, and I expect I spoke pretty mad, for I
_felt_ mad. 'I got it of a travellin' peddler, that's far enough
away by this time, and if you're sure it's bad I'm that much out of
pocket.' He seemed right concerned about it, and ast me if I hadn't no
clue that I could track the peddler by; but I couldn't think of any, and
I went home a good deal down in the mouth. But Gracie chirked me up, as
she always does, bless her! and she made me a Welsh rabbit for supper,
and some corn muffins, and a pot of good rich chocolate, by way of a
change, and we agreed that, as she'd a pretty big five dollars worth and
as the rest of the change was good, we'd say no more about it, for it
would be like lookin' for a needle in a hay-stack to try to track him.

"'Why, father,' she says, 'I don't so much as know his name: do you?'

"I told her no, I didn't; that if I'd heard his name I disremembered it,
but that I didn't think I'd heard it. And then that very night come
another visit from mother, and she told me all about it. She come the
way she always did, and when she spoke the last time, close to, as you
may say, she says,--

"'I wouldn't give up that ten dollars so easy, if I was you, father.
That peddler's name is Hanigan,--Elwood Hanigan,--and he'll be at the
State Fair to-morrow. Now, do you go, and you'll find his red wagon with
no trouble at all; and jest be right down firm with him, and tell him
that if he doesn't give you good money in place of the bad he foisted
off on