n till, heh?"

"That is all right, Mrs. Massey," said Hopewell, in his gentle way. "I
can change it. Have to give you a gold piece--there."

"What's going to be done about this liquor selling, anyway?" demanded
Nelson Haley, in a much more serious mood, it would seem, than usual.
"I think Janice has the right of it--although I did not think so at
first. 'Live and let live,' is a good motto; but it is foolish to let
a mad dog live in a community. Lem Parraday's bar is certainly doing a
lot of harm to innocent people."

Janice clapped her hands softly, and her eyes shone. The school
teacher went on with increased warmth:

"Polktown is really being vastly injured by the liquor selling. To
think of those boys becoming intoxicated--one of them of my school,
too----"

The young man halted suddenly in this speech. In his earnestness he
had forgotten that it was his school no longer.

"It is a disgraceful state of affairs," 'Rill hastened to say, kindly
covering Nelson's momentary confusion.

But Janice beamed at the young man. "Oh, Nelson! I am delighted to
hear you speak so. We are going to hold a temperance meeting--Mr.
Middler and I have talked it over. And I have obtained Elder
Concannon's promise to be one of those on the platform. Polktown must
be waked up----"

"What! _Again_? Haw! haw! haw!" burst out Walky. "Jefers-pelters,
Janice Day! You've abeout give Polktown insomnia already! I sh'd say
our eyes was purty well opened----"

"_Yours_ are not, old fellow," said Nelson, good-naturedly, but with
marked earnestness, too. "You're patronizing the barroom side of the
hotel altogether more than is good for you, and if you don't know it
yourself, Walky, I feel myself enough your friend to tell you so."

"Nonsense! nonsense!" returned the expressman, reddening a little, yet
man enough to accept personal criticism when he was so prone to
criticizing other people. "What leetle I drink ain't never goin' ter
hurt me."

"Nor anybody else?" asked Janice, softly, for she liked Walky and was
sorry to see him go wrong. "How about your example, Walky?"

"Shucks! Don't talk ter me abeout 'example.' That's allus the excuse
of the weak-headed. If my example was goin' ter hurt the boys, ev'ry
one o' them would wanter be th' town expressman! Haw! haw! haw! I
ain't never seen none o' them tumblin' over each other fer th' chance't
ter cut me out on my job. An' 'cause I chaw terbaccer, is ev'ry
white-