ked round the block,
crossed two back yards and climbed the kitchen steps to throw the judge
off the scent. William could hardly make a scene before these women. He
could only protest by leaving the house.

He found that, having let the outrage go unpunished, once, it was hard
to work up steam to drive it out the second day. Also he remembered that
he had asked Tawm Kinch for a position in his sash-and-blind factory
and Tawm had said he would see about it. Attacking Tawm Kinch would be
like assaulting his future bread and butter. He kept away from the house
as much as he could, sulking like a punished boy. One evening as he went
home to supper, purposely delaying as long as possible, he saw Tawm
Kinch coming from the house. He ran down the steps like an urchin and
seized William's hand as if he had not seen him for a long time.

"Take a walk with me, Bill," he said, and led William along an
unfrequented side street. After much hemming and hawing he began: "Bill,
I got a proposition to make you. I find there's a possibility of a
p'sition openin' up in the works and maybe I could fit you into it if
you'd do something for me."

William tried not to betray his overweening joy.

"I'd always do anything for you, Tawm," he said. "I always liked you,
always spoke well of you, which is more 'n I can say of some of the
other folks round here."

Tawm was flying too high to note the raw tactlessness of this; he went
right on:

"Bill--or Mr. Pepperall, I'd better say--I'm simply dead gone on that
girl of yours. She's the sweetest, smartest, gracefulest thing that ever
struck this town, and when I--Well, I'm afraid to ask her m'self, but I
was thinkin' if you could arrange it."

"Arrange what?"

"I want to marry her. I know I'm no kid, but she could have the big
house, and I can be as foolish as anybody about spending money when I've
a mind to. Prue could have 'most anything she wanted and I could give
you a good job. And then ever'body would be happy."

X

Papa did his best to be dignified and not turn a handspring or shout for
joy. He was like a boy trying to look sad when he learns that the
school-teacher is ill. He managed to hold back and tell Tawm Kinch that
this was kind of sudden like and he'd have to talk to the wife about it,
and o' course the girl would have to be considered.

He was good salesman enough not to leap at the first offer, and he left
Tawm Kinch guessing at the gate of the big house. To Tawm it