most of the folks in
this town."

"I know it; I know it. And he's kept goin' ever since. Runnin' to
New York, he and you," with a nod toward Frances, "and travelin' to
Washin'ton and Niagary Falls and all. Wonder to me how he does as much
writin' as he does. That last book of yours is sellin' first-rate, they
tell me, Kent."

He referred to the novel I began in Mayberry. I have rewritten and
finished it since, and it has had a surprising sale. The critics seem to
think I have achieved my first genuine success.

"What are you writin' now?" asked Asaph. "More of them yarns about
pirates and such? Land sakes! when I go by this house nights and see a
light in your library window there, Kent, and know you're pluggin' along
amongst all them adventures, I wonder how you can stand it. 'Twould give
me the shivers. Godfreys! the last time I read one of them yarns--that
about the 'Black Brig' 'twas--I hardly dast to go to bed. And I DIDN'T
dast to put out the light. I see a pirate in every corner, grittin' his
teeth. Writin' another of that kind, are you?"

"No," I said; "this one is quite different. You will have no trouble in
sleeping over this one, Ase."

"That's a comfort. Got a little Bayport in it? Seems to me you ought to
put a little Bayport in, for a change."

I smiled. "There is a little in this," I answered. "A little at the
beginning, and, perhaps, at the end."

"You don't say! You ain't got me in it, have you? I'd--I'd look kind of
funny in a book, wouldn't I?"

I laughed, but I did not answer.

"Not that I ain't seen things in my life," went on Asaph, hopefully. "A
man can't be town clerk in a live town like this and not see things. But
I hope you won't put any more foreigners in. This we're readin' now,"
rapping the newspaper with his knuckles, "gives us all we want to know
about foreigners. Just savages, they be, as you say, and nothin' more. I
pity 'em."

I laughed again.

"Asaph," said I, "what would you say if I told you that the English and
French--yes, and the Germans, too, though I haven't seen them at home as
I have the others--were no more savages than we are?"

"I'd say you was crazy," was the prompt answer.

"Well, I'm not. And you're not very complimentary. You're forgetting
again. You forget that I married one of those savages."

Asaph was taken aback, but he recovered promptly, as he had before.

"She ain't any savage," he announced. "Her mother was born right here in
Bayport. And s