t," says I. "As a rule, I don't run no rock-of-ages
refuge, but I likes to be neighborly, so help yourself."

We fixed it up that way, and about every so often I'd see Doc Pinphoodle
slidin' in the back window, with a worried look on his face, and iron
rust on his trousers. He was a quiet neighbor, though--didn't torture
the cornet, or deal in voice culture, or get me to cash checks that came
back with remarks in red ink written on 'em.

I was wonderin' how the Vedic stunt was catchin' on, when all of a
sudden he buds out in an eight-dollar hat, this year's model, and begins
to lug around an iv'ry-handled cane.

"I'm glad they're comin' your way, Doc," says I.

"Thanks," says he. "If I can in any measure repay some of the many
kindnesses which you have--"

"Sponge it off," says I. "Maybe I'll want to throw a lady off the scent
myself, some day."

A week or so later I misses him altogether, and the janitor tells me
he's paid up and moved. Well, they come and go like that, so it don't do
to feel lonesome; but I had the floor swept under the couch reg'lar, on
a chance that he might show up again.

It was along about then that I hears about the bull pup. I'd been
wantin' to have one out to Primrose Park--where I goes to prop up the
weekend, you know. Pinckney was tellin' me of a friend of his that owns
a likely-lookin' litter about two months old, so one Saturday afternoon
I starts to hoof it over and size 'em up.

Now that was reg'lar, wa'n't it? You wouldn't think a two-eyed man like
me could go astray just tryin' to pick out a bull pup, would you? But
look what I runs into! I'd gone about four miles from home, and was
hittin' up a Daddy Weston clip on the side path, when I sees one of them
big bay-windowed bubbles slidin' past like a train of cars. There was a
girl on the back seat that looks kind of natural. She sees me, too,
shouts to Francois to put on the emergency brake, and begins wavin' her
parasol at me to hurry on. It was Sadie Sullivan.

"Hurry up, Shorty! Run!" she yells. "There isn't a minute to lose."

I gets up on my toes at that, and I hadn't no more'n climbed aboard
before the machine was tearin' up the macadam again.

"Anybody dyin'," says I, "or does the bargain counter close at five
o'clock?"

"Aunt Tillie's eloping," says she, "and if we don't head her off she'll
marry an old villain who ought to be in jail."

"Not Mr. Pinckney's Aunt Tillie, the old girl that owns the big place up
nea