t what of that? It'll make better times in the end."

"All right, George--go in. I glory in your spunk!" chirped the Doctor as
he put Lila's package under his arm. "Let me tell you something," he
added, "I've got a bill I'm going to push in the next legislature that
will knock a hole in that doctrine of the assumed risk of labor, you can
drive a horse through. It makes the owners pay for the accidents of a
trade, instead of hiding behind that theory, that a man assumes those
risks when he takes a job."

The Doctor put his head to one side, cocked one eye and cried: "How
would that go?"

"Now you're shoutin', Doc. Bust a machine, and the company pays for it.
Bust a man, the man pays for it or his wife and children or his friends
or the county. That's not fair. A man's as much of a part of the cost of
production as a machine!"

The Doctor toddled out, clicking his cane and whistling a merry tune and
left Mr. Brotherton enjoying his maiden meditations upon the injustices
of this world. In the midst of his meditations he found that he had been
listening for five minutes to Captain Morton. The Captain was expounding
some passing dream about his Household Horse. Apparently the motor car,
which was multiplying rapidly in Harvey, had impressed him. He was
telling Mr. Brotherton that his Household Horse, if harnessed to the
motor car, would save much of the power wasted by the chains. He was
dreaming of the distant day when motor cars would be used in sufficient
numbers to make it profitable for the Captain to equip them with his
power saving device.

But Mr. Brotherton cut into the Captain's musings with: "You tell the
girls to wash the cat for I'm coming out to-night."

"Girls?--huh--girls?" replied the Captain as he looked over his
spectacles at Mr. Brotherton. "'Y gory, man, what's the matter with
me--eh? I'm staying out there on Elm Street yet--what say?" And he went
out smiling.

When the Captain entered the house, he found Emma getting supper, Martha
setting the table and Ruth, with a candy box before her at the piano,
going over her everlasting "Ah-ah-ah-ah-ahs" from "C to C" as Emma
called it.

Emma took her father's hat, put it away and said: "Well, father--what's
the news?"

"Well," replied the Captain, with some show of deliberation, "a friend
of mine down town told me to tell you girls to wash the cat for he'll be
along here about eight o'clock."

"Mr. Brotherton," scoffed Ruth. "It's up to you two," sh