methods of communication in Cove City, both of which were
equally effective. One was the telephone, which from a single, isolated
case had developed into an epidemic, and the other, which enjoyed the
dignity of precedence and established custom, was to tell Jimmy Fallows.

Both of these currents of information soon overflowed with the news that
Mr. D. Webster Opp had given up a good position in the city, and
expected to establish himself in business in his native town. The nature
of this business was agitating the community at large in only a degree
less than it was agitating Mr. Opp himself.

One afternoon Jimmy Fallows stood with his back to his front gate,
suspended by his armpits from the pickets, and conducted business after
his usual fashion. As a general retires to a hill-top to organize his
forces and issue orders to his subordinates, so Jimmy hung upon his
front fence and conducted the affairs of the town. He knew what time
each farmer came in, where the "Helping Hands" were going to sew, where
the doctor was, and where the services would be held next Sunday. He was
coroner, wharf-master, undertaker, and notary, and the only thing in the
heavens above or the earth below concerning which he did not attempt to
give information was the arrival of the next steamboat.

As he stood whittling a stick and cheerfully humming a tune of other
days, he descried a small, alert figure coming up the road. The pace was
so much brisker than the ordinary slow gait of the Cove that he
recognized the person at once as Mr. Opp. Whereupon he lifted his voice
and hailed a boy who was just vanishing down the street in the opposite
direction:

"Nick!" he called. "Aw, Nick Fenny! Tell Mat Lucas that Mr. Opp's
uptown."

Connection being thus made at one end of the line, he turned to effect
it at the other. "Howdy, Brother Opp. Kinder dusty on the river, ain't
it?"

"Well, we _are_ experiencing considerable of warm weather at this
juncture," said Mr. Opp, affably.

"Mat Lucas has been hanging round here all day," said Jimmy. "He wants
you to buy out a half-interest in his dry-goods store. What do you think
about it?"

"Well," said Mr. Opp, thrusting his thumbs into the armholes of his
waistcoat, "I am considering of a great variety of different things. I
been in the dry-goods business twice, and I can't say but what it ain't
a pretty business. Of course," he added with a twinge, "my specialty are
shoes."

"Yes," said Jimmy; "b