e other day when she
was trying to find a rhyme for 'Isaiah.'"

"I wondered what caused me so much pain the last time I ate supper at
Josie's. I must have swallowed a sonnet. What's your line, Phil?"

"Zooelogy."

"Possible?"

"It was this way, Amy. You know that piece I read at the high-school
commencement--'The Dogs of Main Street'?"

"I do, Phil, I do; I nearly laughed myself to death."

"Well, it did seem to tickle the folks. I was about to kindle the fire
with it one day when I happened to think that if it would make a
high-school commencement laugh it ought to raise a laugh out of 'most
anybody. So I touched it up and put in a few new dogs I've got the boys
in Landers's livery-stable taking care of, and sent it to three
magazines. The first two regretted, but the third fell for it. They want
pictures of the dogs, though, and will give me twenty more round iron
dollars for a full set, so if you see me on the hike with the camera in
the morning, don't ring up the town marshal."

"Well, well," said Amzi; "it sounds like easy money. Going to keep it
up?"

"I have said nothing," replied Phil, holding up her cardcase and
swinging it by its short chain. "Just credit me with the fifty and I'll
bring in my book the next time I find it."

In front of the theater she ran into her Uncle Lawrence, gloomily posed
before the entrance with his astrakhan collar drawn up about his ears.
He had once seen Richard Mansfield in just such a coat and had been
moved to imitation.

"Divinity!" breathed Hastings tragically, noting Phil's glowing cheeks
and satisfying raiment.

"Forget it!" said Phil. "How about a box for the Saturday matinee? I
think I'll pull off a party for a bunch of girls at your expense. What
is that on the boards? You don't mean that 'Her Long Road Home'
threatens this town again? Why rub it in, Lawr_i_nce?"

"They've canceled," said Hastings with a sigh. "That booking-office is a
den of thieves. No honor, no feeling, no ideals of art!"

His tones were unusually abysmal. He stood with his back to the door of
his theater as though shielding it from Philistine assaults upon the
drama's divine temple.

"By the way, Lawr_i_nce--" Her Aunt Kate had rebuked her at least a
thousand times for calling him "Lawr_i_nce." He had asked her to call
him "Uncle Larry," which was her main reason for not doing so. Her
standard of uncles was high. She had never admitted her aunts' husbands
to a share in a relationship