p, tramping round
this room, and come and eat your dinner. There's not an atom of reason
in spending your time looking for that purse. You'll never see it
again. Like enough you dropped it down the well: it would be just like
you. I just know that purse is down that well. Carelessness! the idea
of dropping your purse down the well!"

Without heeding the rattle, Napoleon went on eating and Dr. Lively
went on searching--now in the dining-room, now in the kitchen, now in
the hall.

Mrs. Lively soon returned to her life-work: "What's the sense in
poking, and poking, and poking around, and around, and around? Mortal
eyes will never see that purse again. I've no question but you put it
in the stove for a chip this morning when you made the fire. Who ever
heard of another man kindling a fire with a purse? Will you eat your
dinner, Dr. Lively, or shall I clear away the table? I can't have the
work standing round all day."

Notwithstanding his worry, the doctor was hungry, so he replied by
seating himself at the table. "There's nothing here to eat," he said,
glancing at the empty dishes and plates.

"If that boy hasn't cleared off every dish!" cried the housekeeper.
"Why didn't you lick the platters clean, and be done with it?" and she
seized an empty dish in either hand and disappeared to replenish it.

While her husband took his dinner she went up stairs and ransacked the
bed-room for the missing purse. "What are you sitting there for?" she
exclaimed, suddenly re-entering the dining-room, where Dr. Lively was
sitting with his arms on the table. "Why don't you get up and look for
that purse you lost?"

"No use, you said," Napoleon put in by way of reminder.

"For pity's sake, arn't you done eating yet?"

"Just am," answered the corporal, rising from his seat, yet chewing
industriously.

Mrs. Lively began to gather the dirty dishes into a pan. "What are you
going to do about it, Dr. Lively?" she asked meanwhile.

"I don't know what we _can_ do about it, except to cut off
corners--live more economically."

"As if we could!" cried Mrs. Lively, all ablaze. "Where are there
any corners to cut off? In the name of charity, tell me. I've cut
and shaved until life is as round and as bare as this plate." With a
mighty rattle and clatter she threw the said plate into the dish-pan
and jerked up a platter from the table. Holding it in her left hand,
she proceeded: "Do you know, Dr. Lively, what your family lives on?
Potatoes,