rself?" asked Jimmy.

"Do you reckon she'd sell it?" asked Mr. Opp, anxiously.

"Sell it?" said Jimmy. "Why, she's 'most ready to give it away to keep
from having to pay Pete Aker's rent for the shop. Say--Mr. Gall--up," he
called up the street to a man who was turning the corner, "is Mrs. Gusty
at home?"

The man, thus accosted, turned and came toward them.

"Who is Mr. Gallop?" asked Mr. Opp.

"He's the new telephone girl," said Jimmy, with relish; "ain't been here
but a month, and he's doing the largest and most profitable trade in
tending to other folks's business you ever seen. Soft! Why, he must 'a'
been raised on a pillow--He always puts me in mind of a highly educated
pig: it sorter surprises and tickles you to see him walkin' round on his
hind legs and talking like other people. Other day one of the boys, just
to devil him, ast him to drive his team out home. I liked to 'a' died
when I seen him tryin' to turn the corner, pullin' 'Gee' and hollerin'
'Haw' with every breath. Old mules got their legs in a hard knot trying
to do both at once, and the boys says when Gallop got out in the country
he felt so bad about it he got down and 'pologized to the mules. How
'bout that, Gallop--did you!" he concluded as the subject of the
conversation arrived upon the scene.

The new-comer, a plump, fair young man, who held one hand clasped
affectionately in the other, blushed indignantly, but said nothing.

"This here is Mr. Opp," went on Jimmy; "he wants to see Mrs. Gusty. Do
you know whether he will ketch her at home or not?"

Mr. Gallop was by this time paying the tribute of many an admiring
glance to every detail of Mr. Opp's costume, and Mr. Opp, realizing
this, assumed an air of cosmopolitan nonchalance, and toyed
indifferently with his large watch-fob.

When Mr. Gallop's admiration and attention had become focused upon Mr.
Opp's ring, he suddenly turned on the faucet of his conversation, and
allowed such a stream of general information to pour forth that Mr. Opp
quite forgot to look imposing.

"Mrs. Gusty telephoned early this morning to Mrs. Dorsey that she would
come over and help her make preserves. Mrs. Dorsey got a big load of
peaches from her father across the river. He's been down with the
asthma, and had to call up the doctor twice in the night. And the doctor
couldn't get the right medicine in town, and had me call up the city.
They are going to send it down on the _Big Sandy_, but she's stuck in
th