y of it. He allowed no individual
and no corporation to infringe his smallest right and escape unpunished.
He was very rich, and very generous, and benevolent, and he gave away
his money with a prodigal hand; but if an individual or corporation
infringed a right of his, to the value of ten cents, he would spend
thousands of dollars' worth of time and labor and money and persistence
on the matter, and would not lower his flag until he had won his battle
or lost it.

He and Rev. Mr. Harris had been classmates in college, and to the day of
Sage's death they were as fond of each other as an engaged pair. It
follows, without saying, that whenever Sage found an opportunity to play
a joke upon Harris, Harris was sure to suffer.

Along about 1873 Sage fell a victim to an illness which reduced him to a
skeleton, and defied all the efforts of the physicians to cure it. He
went to the Adirondacks and took Harris with him. Sage had always been
an active man, and he couldn't idle any day wholly away in inanition,
but walked every day to the limit of his strength. One day, toward
nightfall, the pair came upon a humble log cabin which bore these words
painted upon a shingle: "Entertainment for Man and Beast." They were
obliged to stop there for the night, Sage's strength being exhausted.
They entered the cabin and found its owner and sole occupant there, a
rugged and sturdy and simple-hearted man of middle age. He cooked supper
and placed it before the travellers--salt junk, boiled beans, corn bread
and black coffee. Sage's stomach could abide nothing but the most
delicate food, therefore this banquet revolted him, and he sat at the
table unemployed, while Harris fed ravenously, limitlessly, gratefully;
for he had been chaplain in a fighting regiment all through the war, and
had kept in perfection the grand and uncritical appetite and splendid
physical vigor which those four years of tough fare and activity had
furnished him. Sage went supperless to bed, and tossed and writhed all
night upon a shuck mattress that was full of attentive and interested
corn-cobs. In the morning Harris was ravenous again, and devoured the
odious breakfast as contentedly and as delightedly as he had devoured
its twin the night before. Sage sat upon the porch, empty, and
contemplated the performance and meditated revenge. Presently he
beckoned to the landlord and took him aside and had a confidential talk
with him. He said,

"I am the paymaster. What is