fog horn
to hear with. You can go and pack your things as soon as you want to. I
made up my mind the first day you come that you and me wouldn't cruise
together long, and this only shortens the trip by a week or so. I'll pay
you for this month and for the next, and I guess, when you come to think
it over, you'll be willin' to risk soilin' your hands with the money.
It's your own fault if anybody knows that you didn't leave of your own
accord. _I_ shan't tell, and I'll see that Tidditt doesn't. Now trot!
Ase and I'll get supper ourselves."

It was evident that the ex-housekeeper had much more which she would
have liked to say. But there was that in her late employer's manner
which caused her to forbear. She slammed out of the room, and they heard
her banging things about on the floor above.

"But where--WHERE," repeated Mr. Tidditt, over and over, "did she get
that trumpet?"

The puzzle was solved soon after, when Bailey Bangs entered the house in
a high state of excitement.

"Well," he demanded, expectantly. "Did they help her? Has anything
happened?"

"HAPPENED!" began Asaph, but Captain Cy silenced him by a wink.

"Yes," answered the captain; "something's happened. Why?"

"Hurrah! I thought 'twould. She can hear better, can't she?"

"Yes, I guess it's safe to say she can."

"Good! You can thank me for it. When I see how dreadful deef she was I
wrote my cousin Eddie T, who's an optician up to Boston--you know him,
Ase--and I says: 'Ed, you know what's good for folks who can't see?
Ain't there nothin',' says I, 'that'll help them who can't hear? How
about ear trumpets?' And Ed wrote that an ear trumpet would probably
help some, but why didn't I try a pair of them patent fixin's that are
made to put inside deef people's ears? He'd known of cases where they
helped a lot. So I sent for a pair, and the biggest ear trumpet made,
besides. And when I met Debby to-day I give 'em to her and told her to
put the patent things IN her ears and couple on the trumpet outside
'em. And not to say nothin' to you, but just surprise you. And it did
surprise you, didn't it?"

The wrathful Mr. Tidditt could wait no longer. He burst into a vivid
description of the "surprise." Bailey was aghast. Captain Cy laughed
until his face was purple.

"I declare, Cy!" exclaimed the dejected purchaser of the "ear fixin's"
and the trumpet. "I do declare I'm awful sorry! if you'd only told me
she was no good I'd have let her alone; but I thou