ith studied
carelessness. "Maybe I'll raffle it off."

"Not here in Polktown ye won't," said the expressman. "Yeou might as
well try ter raffle off a white elephant."

"Pshaw! of course not. But a fine fiddle like that--a real
Cremona--will bring a pretty penny in the city. There, Walky, roll
that barrel right into this corner behind the bar. I'll have to put a
spigot in it soon. Might's well do it now. 'Tis the real Simon-pure
article, Walky. Have a snifter?"

"On the haouse?" queried Walky, briskly.

"Sure. It's a tin roof," laughed Bodley.

"Much obleeged ter ye," said Walky. "As yer so pressin'--don't mind if
I do. A glass of sars'p'rilla'll do me."

"What's the matter with you lately, Walky?" demanded the barkeeper,
pouring the non-alcoholic drink with no very good grace. "Lost your
taste for a man's drink?"

"Sort o'," replied Walky, calmly. "Here's your health, Joe. I thought
you had that fiddle sold before you went to Hopewell arter it?"

"To tell ye the truth, Walky----"

"Don't do it if it hurts ye, Joe. Haw! haw!"

The barkeeper made a wry face and continued:

"That feller I got it for, only put up a part of the price. I thought
he was a square sport; but he ain't. When he got a squint at the old
fiddle while Hopewell was down here playing for the dance, he was just
crazy to buy it. Any old price, he said! After I got it," proceeded
Joe, ruefully, "he tries to tell me it ain't worth even what I paid for
it."

"Wal--'tain't, is it?" said Walky, bluntly.

"If it's worth a hundred it's worth a hundred and fifty," said the
barkeeper doggedly.

"Ya-as--_if_," murmured the expressman.

"However, nobody's going to get it for any less--believe me! Least of
all that Fontaine. I hate these Kanucks, anyway. I know _him_. He's
trying to jew me down," said Joe, angrily.

"Wal, you take it to the city," advised Walky. "You kin make yer spec
on it there, ye say."

There was a storm cloud drifting across Old Ti as the expressman
climbed to his wagon seat and drove away from the Inn. It had been a
very hot day and was now late afternoon--just the hour for a summer
tempest.

The tiny waves lapped the loose shingle along the lake shore. There
was the hot smell of over-cured grass on the uplands. The flower beds
along the hilly street which Janice Day mounted after a visit to the
Narnays, were quite scorched now.

This street brought Janice out by the Lake View Inn. She, too,