there, Dan'l," said Mrs. Harkutt
in plaintive diffidence.

"Yes! Yes!" said Harkutt impatiently. "I've kalkilated all that, and
I'm goin' to 'Frisco to-morrow to raise it and put this bill of sale on
record." He half drew Elijah Curtis's paper from his pocket, but paused
and put it back again.

"Then THAT WAS the paper, dad," said Phemie triumphantly.

"Yes," said her father, regarding her fixedly, "and you know now why I
didn't want anything said about it last night--nor even now."

"And 'Lige had just given it to you! Wasn't it lucky?"

"He HADN'T just given it to me!" said her father with another unexpected
outburst. "God Amighty! ain't I tellin' you all the time it was an old
matter! But you jabber, jabber all the time and don't listen! Where's
John Milton?" It had occurred to him that the boy might have read the
paper--as his sister had--while it lay unheeded on the counter.

"In the store,--you know. You said he wasn't to hear anything of this,
but I'll call him," said Mrs. Harkutt, rising eagerly.

"Never mind," returned her husband, stopping her reflectively, "best
leave it as it is; if it's necessary I'll tell him. But don't any of you
say anything, do you hear?"

Nevertheless a few hours later, when the store was momentarily free of
loungers, and Harkutt had relieved his son of his monotonous charge, he
made a pretense, while abstractedly listening to an account of the boy's
stewardship, to look through a drawer as if in search of some missing
article.

"You didn't see anything of a paper I left somewhere about here
yesterday?" he asked carelessly.

"The one you picked up when you came in last night?" said the boy with
discomposing directness.

Harkutt flushed slightly and drew his breath between his set teeth. Not
only could he place no reliance upon ordinary youthful inattention,
but he must be on his guard against his own son as from a spy! But he
restrained himself.

"I don't remember," he said with affected deliberation, "what it was I
picked up. Do you? Did you read it?"

The meaning of his father's attitude instinctively flashed upon the boy.
He HAD read the paper, but he answered, as he had already determined,
"No."

An inspiration seized Mr. Harkutt. He drew 'Lige Curtis's bill of sale
from his pocket, and opening it before John Milton said, "Was it that?"

"I don't know," said the boy. "I couldn't tell." He walked away with
affected carelessness, already with a sense of playing so