Wilkins interrupted the thought.

"Leastways," he said, "HE'LL get her if Skinner don't. It's a close run
between him an' Skinner. Skinner ain't so good lookin' as the Colonel,
but he's better fixed. It's Skinner owns our butcher-shop, an' it's
Skinner is buildin' our Opery House Block. Some say Skinner'll get Pap
Briggs' money, an' some says the Colonel will."

"Are there any others?" asked Eliph', looking down the street to where
the raw brick of the opera house glowed in the sun.

"After Sally?" asked Jim Wilkins. "Well, there's sev'ral would like to
get her, I dare say. Sally Briggs is a pretty fine sort of woman, an'
Pap Briggs has quite considerable money, but the Colonel an' Skinner has
the inside track. No one else has a chance."

Eliph' stroked his whiskers softly and coughed gently behind his hand.

"Briggs, did you say the name was?" he asked. "Seems to me I met a lady
at a picnic up Clarence way that had that name. You said the name was
Sally Briggs?"

"That's her," said Wilkins. "Sally Ann Briggs. She's been visitin' up
there in Clarence."

Eliph' nodded his head slowly.

"I seem to recollect her, since you mention it," he said indifferently,
and then he added, "She spoke as if she might buy a copy of Jarby's
Encyclopedia of Knowledge and Compendium of Literature, Science and Art
when I saw her at that picnic. I guess I'll drop 'round and see if she's
ready to buy. If she' goin' to be married she ought to have a copy."

CHAPTER VIII. The Medium-Sized Box

As Eliph' walked briskly toward Miss Sally's house the Colonel
was having an interesting conversation with Attorney Toole, in the
attorney's office over the Kilo Savings Bank.

Attorney Toole had been a lawyer at Franklin, and he had come down to
Kilo because he preferred a being a big toad in a small puddle, rather
than a little toad in a middle-sized one. This was one of his reasons,
but another was that he had complete and full faith in Richard Toole,
and intended to be a political power in the land. He could not be much
of anything in Franklin, for that town was hard and fast Democratic, and
Toole was a Republican. The first step to political preferment is to be
elected to something or other, it does not make much difference what,
and to rise from that to greater things, but a Republican had no
chance in Franklin; couldn't even get an appointment as dog police or
wharfmaster; couldn't get elected to any office at all.

So Toole pack