ty-five cents each.

Flannery spent a day herding his charges through a narrow opening in
their cage so that he might count them.

"Audit Dept." he wrote, when he had finished the count, "you are way off
there may be was one hundred and sixty dago pigs once, but wake up don't
be a back number. I've got even eight hundred, now shall I collect
for eight hundred or what, how about sixty-four dollars I paid out for
cabbages."

It required a great many letters back and forth before the Audit
Department was able to understand why the error had been made of billing
one hundred and sixty instead of eight hundred, and still more time for
it to get the meaning of the "cabbages."

Flannery was crowded into a few feet at the extreme front of the
office. The pigs had all the rest of the room and two boys were employed
constantly attending to them. The day after Flannery had counted the
guinea-pigs there were eight more added to his drove, and by the time
the Audit Department gave him authority to collect for eight hundred
Flannery had given up all attempts to attend to the receipt or the
delivery of goods. He was hastily building galleries around the express
office, tier above tier. He had four thousand and sixty-four guinea-pigs
to care for! More were arriving daily.

Immediately following its authorization the Audit Department sent
another letter, but Flannery was too busy to open it. They wrote another
and then they telegraphed:

"Error in guinea-pig bill. Collect for two guinea-pigs, fifty cents.
Deliver all to consignee."

Flannery read the telegram and cheered up. He wrote out a bill as
rapidly as his pencil could travel over paper and ran all the way to the
Morehouse home. At the gate he stopped suddenly. The house stared at
him with vacant eyes. The windows were bare of curtains and he could see
into the empty rooms. A sign on the porch said, "To Let." Mr. Morehouse
had moved! Flannery ran all the way back to the express office.
Sixty-nine guinea-pigs had been born during his absence. He ran out
again and made feverish inquiries in the village. Mr. Morehouse had not
only moved, but he had left Westcote. Flannery returned to the express
office and found that two hundred and six guinea-pigs had entered the
world since he left it. He wrote a telegram to the Audit Department.

"Can't collect fifty cents for two dago pigs consignee has left town
address unknown what shall I do? Flannery."

The telegram was handed to on