"Who's movin'?" Timothy inquired of the merchant who sat upon the doorstep of the next frame building. The merchant, not knowing, propounded the question to the proprietor of the next business house, who happened to be standing in his doorway, idly whittling. The inquiry was thus passed from house to house till it reached the corner, unanswered.

In the meantime, the moving wagon had come to a sudden, almost disastrous standstill in front of Timothy's door. In laying the new stone crossing, a gap had been left open just wide enough to catch a wagon wheel, and narrow enough to hold it when caught. This was the cause of the present stoppage. The pieces of furniture, shaken into convulsions by the sudden wrench, quivered in their ropes, and the tall headpiece of a bed had an air of shuddering at its close proximity to the kitchen-cabinet. The owner of the household goods, a tall, solemn-looking gentleman of fortyfive, with a prodigious black mustache, leaped to the ground at the shock; but the driver, Hodgins Thornberry, not only retained his seat with admirable equipoise, but maintained an uninterrupted working of the jaw that bespoke a plentiful supply of "natural leaf.”

The owner of the furniture was Mr. Mulkey, the newcomer to Core City. He looked inquiringly at the driver of the dray. "Well," he said impatiently, "what are we to do? Remember we must get that car unloaded before the accommodation comes down from Van Buren."

"I don't know," said Hodgins Thornberry, shaking his head; "we're in a bad fix, I call it. It will be a powerful job to get that wheel out of that crack-now you know it will."

Old Timothy Thomberry slowly rose from his

split-bottomed chair, and leisurely started across the street to the scene of misfortune.

"The wheel must be prized out," said Mr. Mulkey fiercely. "Man, we are in a hurry. Get a crowbar; call in some of your fellows to help." His brow was dark with commanding will, and his tone coercive.

Hodgins crossed his legs. "I reckon we will have to prize her out," he agreed, "but don't you worry about that train a-comin'. It don't never come on time, and if it did, it would just switch around your car, or wait for some of the boys to shove it down on the side-track. They ain't no hurry, you might say. That ain't the way we do, in Core City. We take things easy. And when you look at it philosophical, that's the only way to take things. Just consider the subject of Death. Some take death hard, some take it easy. But does that make any difference to Death? It does not, and I'll tell you why: because we must all die, some sooner than others, and few as soon as they ought."

The look which Mr. Mulkey cast upward at the logician plainly indicated that he regarded him as coming under the "few" just specified. But Mr. Mulkey was nothing if not portentously dignified. Accordingly, turning to old Timothy:

"Sir," he said, "I am Mulkey-Sylvester Mulkey." "Mighty glad to meet you," said Timothy heartily, shaking his hand. "I'm Captain Thornberry. You seem sorter handicapped here. You must be the gentleman staying at my niece's; Mrs. Eden is my greatniece, and the best woman in town, as anybody will tell you."

"I find her," said Mr. Mulkey solemnly, "a worthy woman. In her-ah-condition of-of life, her spirits

keep up remarkably well. Yes, I'm in a strait. I've tried to persuade my man to proceed, but he-erah

The patronizing words just used referring to Mrs. Eden, the voice of ownership when alluding to Hodgins Thornberry, and the superior manner vouchsafed Captain Timothy Thornberry, were the admiration of the little crowd of men who had assembled to gaze at the lodged wheel. If the wheel could have been lifted out of the crevice by inquisitive eyes, the wagon would instantly have rolled on in triumph. But the wheel cried, almost in an audible voice, for a pole or bar, and the exertion of seeking such an instrument appealed no more to those spectators than the average manuscript to the average publisher.

"Captain Thornberry," said Mr. Mulkey, plainly surprised that the shabbily-dressed old man in the broken straw hat should bear a title, "can you advise me what to do?"

"Now, I'll tell you," said Hodgins, lazily crawling down from his high seat. "I'm going to my dinner. And when I get fed and rested, I'll hunt up some hands to help. So I'll just unhitch these horses and take 'em along with me." He began to unharness.

Timothy nodded with approval, and said to Mr. Mulkey, "You've got the best part of the day before you."

Mr. Mulkey looked at his watch and sighed. “It's an hour past the time Mrs. Eden told me to come to dinner. Surely they will not dine till I come?"

"Yes," said the captain, "they sit down to table punctual to the minute. Groner would see to that." "You mean the positive gentleman ?"

"Groner Thornberry's positive enough when it's a

matter of his own comfort," said Timothy. "He would not allow them to keep a meal waiting for the President; and I allow there's very little left when he lays down his knife!"

"I see you're a grocer," observed Mr. Mulkey, as his eyes caught the sign, "THORNBERRY GROCERY." "Let's cross to the shop. I'll get a light lunch. You have good, fresh cheese?"

"It's fresh enough," said Timothy, sinking back into his split-bottomed chair. He raised his voice: "Come out here, William, and wait on Mr. Mulkey. Mr. Mulkey, this is my grandson, Will Thornberry. What about that cheese, son? Didn't it seem mighty insipid to you-sorter sickenin' like?"

"Yes, it did," said Will, nodding his shaggy head. "I didn't like the taste of the stuff, one bit. I wouldn't advise nobody to buy that cheese; it's not tasteable."

Mr. Mulkey stared in surprise at the handsome young man whose frank, open face beamed upon him in all sincerity, while the broad shoulder propped restfully against the wall. "Well," he said doubtfully, "suppose you give me a nickel's worth of crackers." Mr. Mulkey, in truth, supported his overwhelming dignity upon the most rigid economy.

"I'll give you the crackers, if you say so," drawled Will, "but they are not fit to eat. The last rains have made everything mighty damp, and the crackers—well, you can pretty near bend 'em double without making a single crumb; ain't that so, grandpa?"

"Sure," said Timothy, nodding his snowy head. "Yes, I wouldn't advise you to buy no crackers in the bulk; and we're just out of boxed crackers. You can get 'em next door, and cheese, too, I reckon."

"I should like to deal with you," said Mr. Mulkey,

with a tolerant smile for these peculiarities. "For the sake of the little woman who received us as strangers, your niece, Mrs. Eden, in brief. I should like to make you my grocer while I live in Core City. Come, come, Mr. Thornberry-ah, pardon me," he added, with an amused wave of the hand, "Captain, I should say; suggest something that you know you have."

"William, where are them dates and raisins?" inquired Timothy.

“That's just what I've been looking for," said Will, shaking his head. "Now as to those apples, you can have all you can eat for nothing; and I'll treat you to bananas."

Mr. Mulkey hesitated. Dignity seemed to forbid him sitting down to a free board of apples and bananas for his dinner; but, after all, was it worth sacrificing his purse to impress these simple rustics with his high position? Society must look up to him, but no society was here; simply a seedy old man and an uneducated. young fellow, evidently of no degree. Mr. Mulkey drew his pocketknife, ready for paring.

Presently Will sauntered down the street to the restaurant, a cheap framework, covered with wire gauze, having at the rear a wire-gauze kitchen, alluring to the passerby and tantalizing to the cloud of flies. The lunch counter thus, as it were, thrust boldly upon the public eye, was now occupied by the dinners and the elbows of a line of customers who perched upon high stools with their legs drawn up to inconvenient rounds.

Oscar Thornberry, the proprietor of this open-air resort, having served the last comer with chile and crackers, stood at the entrance of the kitchen with one eye on the coffee urn, and the other on his Grote's