steak, Mother," urged Judge Penniman.

The judge had begun to dwell upon his own new importance. This thing
made him by law a connection of the Whipple family, didn't it? He, Rufus
Tyler Penniman, had become at least a partial Whipple. He reflected
pleasantly upon the consequences.

"Will he go home to-night?" suddenly demanded the Wilbur twin, pointing
at his brother so there should be no mistake. The Merle twin seemed
already a stranger to him.

"Not to-night, dear, but in a few days, I would suppose." It sent Mrs.
Penniman to the stove again.

"I don't just know when I will go," said the Merle twin, surveying a
replenished plate. "But I guess I'll give you back that knife you bought
me; I probably won't need it up there. I'll probably have plenty of
better knives than that knife."

The Wilbur twin questioned this, but hid his doubt. Surely there could
be few better knives in the whole world than one with a thing to dig
stones out of horses' feet. Anyway, he would be glad to have it, and was
glad the promise had been made before witnesses.

After supper on the porch Dave Cowan in the hammock picked chords and
scraps of melody from his guitar, quite as if nothing had happened.
Judge Penniman, in his wicker chair, continued to muse upon certain
pleasant contingencies of this new situation. It had occurred to him
that Dave Cowan himself would be even more a Whipple than any Penniman,
and would enjoy superior advantages inevitably rising from this
circumstance.

"That family will naturally want to do something for you, too, Dave," he
said at last.

"Do something for me?" Dave's fingers hung waiting above the strings.

"Why not? You're the boy's father, ain't you? Facts is facts, no matter
what the law says. You're his absolute progenitor, ain't you? Well, you
living here in the same town, they'll naturally want you to be somebody,
won't they?"

"Oh!" Dave struck the waiting chord. "Well, I am somebody, ain't I?"

The judge waved this aside with a fat, deprecating hand.

"Oh, in that way! Of course, everybody's somebody--every living,
breathing soul. But what I'm getting at--they'll naturally try to make
something out of you, instead of just being kind of a no-account tramp
printer."

"Ha! Is that so, old small-towner?"

"Shouldn't wonder if they'd want to take you into the bank,
mebbe--cashier or something, or manage one of the farms or factories, or
set you up in business of some kind. You might git to