ere it gets us!"

Presently the discussion ended--Rapp, Senior, still on the note of
pessimism and in the fell clutch of the interests--for the debaters must
go blamelessly home to their suppers. Only the mayor remained at his
game with Herman, his gray, shaven old face bent above his cards while
he muttered at them resentfully. Dave Cowan ate his bread and cheese
with relish and invoked another stein of beer from Minna, who
vindictively flung her jest at him again as she brought it.

The Wilbur twin had eaten his apple cake and was now eating the cookies,
taking care to drop no crumbs on the sanded floor. After many cookies
dusk fell and he heard the church bells ring for evening worship. But no
one heeded them. The game drew to an excited finish, while Dave Cowan,
his pipe lighted, mused absently and from time to time quoted bits of
verse softly to himself:

Enchanted ports we, too, shall touch;
Cadiz or Cameroon--

The game ended with an explosion of rage from the mayor. The cards had
continued perverse for him. He pushed his soft black hat back from his
rumpled crest of gray hair and commanded Minna Vielhaber to break a
municipal ordinance which had received his official sanction. Herman
cheerily combed his red beard and scoffed at his late opponent.

"It makes dark," Minna reminded him. "You should have light."

Herman lighted two lamps suspended above the tables. Then he addressed
the Wilbur twin, now skillfully prolonging the last of his cookies.

"Well, young one, you like your bread and cheese and milk and cookies
and apfel kuchen, so? Well, I tell you--come here. I show you something
fine."

He went to the front room, where the bar was, and the Wilbur twin
expectantly followed. He had learned that these good people produced all
manner of delights. But this was nothing to eat. The light from the
lamps shone over the partition between back room and front, and there in
a spacious cage beside the wall was a monkey, a small, sad-eyed creature
with an aged, wrinkled face all but human. He crouched in a corner and
had been piling wisps of straw upon his reverend head.

"Gee, gosh!" exclaimed the Wilbur twin, for he had expected nothing so
rare as this.

The monkey at sight of Herman became animated, leaping again and again
the length of the cage and thrusting between its bars a hairy forearm
and a little, pinkish, human hand.

"You like him, hey?" said Herman.

"Gee, gosh!" again exclaimed the