lved. Talk about your tariff schedules! What we need is
somebody to pare down this Christmas gouge. It's the one kind of tax
you can't swear off.

"And as for you--why, you're goin' daffy. Other years I didn't mind so
much. You spent a lot of time and some money on your annual splurge,
but I will say, you took in better'n you gave. But now you're on the
other side the fence. These Carthage women have got you on the run.
You'll have to give 'em twice as good as they send or you're gone.
You're gone anyway. If you gave each one of 'em a gold platter full of
diamonds they'd say you'd inherited Aunt Ida's stinginess as well as
her money."

Mrs. Budlong went on twisting her fingers: "Oh, of course you're right,
Ule. But what's the use of being right when it's so hateful? All I
can think of is that Everybody in town is going to give me a present!
Everybody!"

"Can't you take your last year's presents and pass 'em along to other
folks?"

"Everybody would recognize them, and I'd be the talk of the town."

"You're that anyway, so what difference does it make?"

"I'd rather die."

"You'd save a lot of money and trouble if you did."

"Just look at the list of presents I must give."

She handed him a bundle of papers. He pushed up his spectacles and put
on his reading glasses, and instantly snorted:

"Say! What is this? the town directory?"

He had not read far down the list when he missed one important name.
"You've overlooked Mrs. Alsop."

"Oh, her! I've quarreled with her. We don't speak, thank heaven."

"It would be money In your pocket, if you didn't speak to anybody.
Gosh!" he slapped his knee. "I have an idea. Stop speaking to
everybody."

"Don't he silly."

"I mean it."

VII

FOILED

Ulysses S. G. Budlong was a man fertile in ideas and unflinching in
their execution. Otherwise he would never have attained his present
unquestioned supremacy, as the leading hay and feed merchant in
Carthage.

"It's as easy as falling off a log," he urged. "You women are always
spatting about something. Now's your chance to capitalize your spats."

"Men are such im-boo-hoo-ciles!" was Mrs. Budlong's comment, as she
began to weep. Her husband patted her with a timid awkwardness as if
she were the nose of a strange horse. "There! there! we'll fix this up
fine. What did you quarrel with Mrs. Alsop about?"

"She told Sally Swezey and Sally Swezey told me--that I used my
Carthage presents to