headed kid in town goin' ter take up chawin' as a habit?

"Jefers-pelters! I 'low if I had a boy o' m' own mebbe I'd be a lettle
keerful how I used either licker, or terbaccer. But I hain't. I got
only one child, an' she's a female. I reckon I ain't gotter worry
about little Matildy bein' inflooenced either by her daddy's chawin',
or his takin' a snifter of licker on a cold day--I snum!"

"Unanswerable logic, Walky," said Nelson, with some scorn. "I've used
the same myself. And it serves all right if one is utterly selfish. I
thought _that_ out after Janice, here, opened my eyes."

"You show me how my takin' a drink 'casionally hurts anybody or
anything else, an', jefers-pelters! I'll stop it mighty quick!"
exclaimed the expressman, with some heat.

"I shall hold you to that, Walky," said Janice, quickly, interfering
before there should be any further sharp discussion.

"And," muttered Nelson, "she's as good as got you, Walky--she has that!"

At the moment the door opened with a bang, and Mr. Massey plunged in.
He was without a hat and wore the linen apron he always put on when he
was compounding prescriptions in the back room of his shop. In his
excitement his gray hair was ruffled up more like a cockatoo's topknot
than usual, and his eyes seemed fairly to spark.

"Hopewell Drugg!" he exclaimed, spying the storekeeper. "Was my wife
just in here?"

"Hul-_lo_!" ejaculated Walky Dexter. "Hopewell hasn't been sellin' her
Paris green for buckwheat flour, has he? That would kinder be in your
line, wouldn't it, Massey?"

But the druggist paid the town humorist no attention. He hurried to
the counter and leaned across it, asking his question for a second time.

"Why, yes, she was here, Mr. Massey," said Hopewell, puzzled.

"She changed a bill with you, didn't she?"

"Jefers-pelters! was it counterfeit?" put in Walky, drawing nearer.

"A twenty dollar bill--yes, sir," said the storekeeper.

"Did you give her a gold piece--a ten dollar gold piece--in the
change?" shot in Massey, his voice shaking.

"Why--yes."

"Is this it?" and the druggist slapped a gold coin down on the counter
between them.

Hopewell picked up the coin, turned it over in his hand, holding it
close to his near-sighted eyes. Nothing could ever hurry Hopewell
Drugg in speech.

"Why--yes," he said again. "I guess so."

"But look at the date, man!" shouted Massey. "Don't you see the date
on it?"

Amazed, Drugg repeated the