I did. And to
think I should run across Sammy Mills after all these years."

"Hewlitt," said Eliph'. "Eliph' Hewlitt is that name I'm known by."

"And to think you stuck by that name all these years!" said Wilkins.
"And still sellin' works of literatoor, are you? Pap, this is my old
boyhood's chum come meanderin' backwards out of the past. And still
sellin' books! Well, I don't want to discourage your ambitiousness, but
I guess you've struck Kilo about the worst time in the century. Ever
hear of a literary writer called Sir Walter Scott? Well, sir, Kilo is
chuck full of Sir Walter; full as a goat. She ain't begun to near git
through with Sir Walter yet, and I don't figger she'll take in no more
libraries just now. Sir Walter hit her pretty hard."

"Ten volumes, fifteen dollars cloth, twenty dollars half morocco?"
inquired Eliph' Hewlitt.

"The identical same," said the landlord. "I purchased a group of Sir
Walters in red leather myself. So did everybody in Kilo; at least I
ain't found anybody that's been missed yet. Paper here got some."

"My daughter Sally----" began the old man.

"Same thing," said Wilkins; "you pay just the same if you bought the
books. Why, Sammy, there's enough Sir Walter right here in Kilo now to
start up a book business. Kilo's light on literatoor generally, but when
she goes in, she goes in heavy. There ain't many towns where you'll find
every livin' soul ready to swaller down fifteen dollars worth of Sir
Walter Scott, two dollars down and one dollar a month until paid; but
I calculate them ten volumes will last Kilo quite a spell, and if worst
comes to worst she won't buy no more literatoor till she gits paid up on
Sir Walter. I figger from my own sense of feelin's that about the worst
time to sell a feller books is when he is still payin' once a month on
the old lot. About the second time the collector drops in to collect on
a set of works of literatoor, a man feels like he had been foolish, but
he grins cheerful, and pays up, but if another man drops in about then
to sell another set of the world's great masterpieces it is pretty near
an insult to human intelligence."

Eliph' Hewlitt drew his hand across his whiskers and coughed gently.

"They told me in Jefferson," he said softly, "that Kilo was the most
intellectual town in central Iowa."

"Everybody says the same," said Wilkins with a touch of pride. "The Sir
Walter Scott man said it, and I guess it's so. But there's other things