t times. He took
notions, as the folks said. Once he went so far as to say that he could
do anything in his store that anybody could do in a big city store and
make a success of it. He was so progressive that in the Coldriver parade
he occupied a position so advanced that it really seemed like two
parades.

Old Man Bogle and Deacon Pettybone and Elder Hooper always discussed
Locker when politics were exhausted, and their only point of difference
was as to when and exactly _how_ Jason would wind up in bankruptcy. They
were agreed that he was a bit touched in his head. He was much given to
sales. He installed a perfectly unnecessary cash carrier from the
counter to a desk where Mrs. Locker made change. He bought a case of
olives, which were viewed and tasted (free) by the village loafers, and
pronounced spoiled.... In short, there was no newfangled idea which
Jason failed to adopt, and in a matter of twenty years the town grew
accustomed to him, and tolerated him, and, as a matter of fact, was
rather proud of him as a novel lunatic. However, he prospered.

But when, on a certain Monday morning, a strange and unquestionably
pretty girl, dressed not according to Coldriver's ideas of current
fashions, made her appearance in a space cleared in the middle of the
store, and there proceeded to make and dispense tiny cups of a new
brand of coffee, the village considered that Jason had gone too far.

It is true that it came in droves to taste the coffee being
demonstrated, for it was to be had without money and without price. It
came to see what it would not believe without seeing, and regarded the
young woman with open suspicion and hostility. It wondered what manner
of young woman it could be who would harum-scarum around the country
making coffee for every Tom, Dick, and Harry, and wearing a smile for
everybody, and demeaning herself generally in a manner not heretofore
observed. It viewed and reviewed her hair, her slippers, her ankles, her
frocks, and her ornaments. The women folks, and especially the younger
women, held frequent indignation meetings, and declared for the
advisability of boycotting Locker unless he removed this menace from
their midst.

But when it noticed, not later than the second day of Miss Yvette
Hinchbrooke's career in their midst, that young Homer Locker flapped
about her like some over-grown insect about a street lamp, it took no
pains to conceal its delight and devoutly hoped for the worst.

"L