as going with the wheelbarrow and the garden tools, and he
said you had hired him to take them over to your house in Heavenward
Avenue for you."

"Mr. Wax lied to you," said I. "He has stolen that barrow and those
tools."

Uncle Si consoled me by telling me that in all human probability Mr.
Wax had sold his stealings by this time and was already squandering his
ill-gotten gains in a barroom. I lamented not only the ingratitude and
dishonesty of this man whom I had sought to befriend, but also the loss
of my barrow and my garden tools. There was, however, some consolation
in the thought that my experience would serve me to good purpose in the
future.

The three mustard sandwiches and the two hard-boiled eggs which I had
brought from home for Mr. Wax's luncheon I now took down into the
cellar and fed to Alice, the mother cat. Had I been a superstitious
person I should not have performed this kind deed by one whom many
might have regarded as the prognostic (if not actually the cause) of
the many evils which had befallen me of late. As it was, I took a kind
of spiteful satisfaction in observing that the gaunt beast did not
exhibit that exuberant fondness for mustard sandwiches and hard-boiled
eggs which might be confidently looked for in the mother of six healthy
and always hungry kittens.

XIII

EDITOR WOODSIT A TRUE FRIEND

One morning--it was a Thursday morning, as I distinctly recall--I was
much surprised to find that work upon the house had practically been
suspended. I was sure there could not have been a strike, for I told
the workmen at the beginning that whenever they felt as if they were
not getting enough pay they must come to me about it and I would raise
their wages. They had already been to me three times and received an
increase of pay each time. So I felt moderately secure against a
strike. Uncle Si explained the situation briefly.

"The plasterers were to have begun today," said he, "but there is no
water for them; so I had to send them away."

"No water?" I cried. "No water? Then tell me, I pray, why this noble
front yard of ours has been converted into a dreary waste by those
vandals with their spades and picks? Why is that deep, wide, ragged
ditch still yawning in our faces and threatening the death of every
tree at whose roots it crawls? And why did I pay Sibley the plumber
forty-five dollars last Saturday night, if it were not for the laying
of water pipe in that hideous d