something curt and
dry in his conversation. One day we lost a fruit jar which he had
loaned, and I took one very much like it back in its place. When I began
to apologize he interrupted me with, "A jar's a jar, isn't it?"

Another time, when I remarked in a conciliatory tone that he owed me
eight cents for a can of potted ham which had proved stale, he
exclaimed, "Well, I won't owe you long," and forthwith pulled the money
out of the loose jacket of his jumper and paid me.

I inquired one day if a certain thing were good. "If it isn't," he
replied, with a peculiar elevation of the eyebrows, "your money is. You
can have that back."

"That's the way you do business, is it?"

"Yes, sir," he replied, and his long upper lip thinned out along the
line of the lower one like a vise.

I was in search of a rocking-chair one day and was directed to
Burridge's as the only place likely to have any!

"Do you keep furniture?" I inquired.

"Some," he said.

"Have you a rocking-chair?"

"No, sir."

A day or two later I was in search of a table and on going to Burridge's
found that he had gone to a neighboring city.

"Have you got a table?" I inquired of the clerk.

"I don't know," he replied. "There's some furniture in the back room,
but I don't know as I dare to sell any of it while he's away."

"Why?"

"Well, he don't like me to sell any of it. He's kind of queer that way.
I dunno what he intends to do with it. Gar!" he added in a strangely
electric way, "he's a queer man! He's got a lot of things back
there--chairs and tables and everything. He's got a lot more in a loft
up the street here. He never seems to want to sell any of 'em. Heard him
tell people he didn't have any."

I shook my head in puzzled desperation.

"Come on, let's go back and look anyway. There's no harm in seeing if he
has one."

We went back and there amid pork and molasses barrels, old papers, boxes
and signs, was furniture in considerable quantity--tables,
rocking-chairs, washstands, bureaus--all cornered and tumbled about.

"Why, here are rocking-chairs, lots of them," I exclaimed. "Just the
kind I want! He said he didn't have any."

"Gar! I dunno," replied the clerk. "Here's a table, but I wouldn't dare
sell it to you."

"Why should he say he didn't have a rocking-chair?"

"Gar! I dunno. He's goin' out of the furniture business. He don't want
to sell any. I don't know what he intends to do with it."

"Well," I said in despair, "wh