rts of the railing were cunningly arranged to
look like huge teeth.

"No wonder," he said to himself "that the stage driver called it the
Jack-o'-Lantern! That's exactly what it is! Why didn't he paint it yellow
and be done with it? The old devil!" The last disrespectful allusion, of
course, being meant for Uncle Ebeneezer.

"Poor Dorothy," he thought again. "I'll burn the whole thing, and she
shall put every blamed crib into the purifying flames. It's mine, and I
can do what I please with it. We'll go away to-morrow, we'll go----"

Where could they go, with less than four hundred dollars? Especially when
one hundred of it was promised for a typewriter? Harlan had parted with
his managing editor on terms of great dignity, announcing that he had
forsworn journalism and would hereafter devote himself to literature. The
editor had remarked, somewhat cynically, that it was a better day for
journalism than for literature, the fine, inner meaning of the retort not
having been fully evident to Harlan until he was some three squares away
from the office.

Much chastened in spirit, and fully ready to accept his wife's estimate of
him, he went on downhill into Judson Centre.

It was the usual small town, the post-office, grocery, meat market, and
general loafing-place being combined under one roof. Near by was the
blacksmith shop, and across from it was the inevitable saloon. Far up in
the hills was the Judson Centre Sanitarium, a worthy institution of some
years standing, where every human ailment from tuberculosis to fits was
more or less successfully treated.

Upon the inmates of the sanitarium the inhabitants of Judson Centre lived,
both materially and mentally. Few of them had ever been nearer to it than
the back door, but tales of dark doings were widely prevalent throughout
the community, and mothers were wont to frighten their young offspring
into obedience with threats of the "san-tor-i-yum."

"Now what do you reckon ails _him_?" asked the blacksmith of the
stage-driver, as Harlan went into the village store.

"Wouldn't reckon nothin' ailed him to look at him, would you?" queried the
driver, in reply.

Indeed, no one looking at Mr. Carr would have suspected him of an
"ailment." He was tall and broad-shouldered and well set up, with clear
grey eyes and a rosy, smooth-shaven, boyish face which had given him the
nickname of "The Cherub" all along Newspaper Row. In his bearing there was
a suggestion of boundless en