elessly,--"except,
perhaps, Stingy Willis, I don't think I'd wager that old codger wouldn't,
though."

"I am afraid I should not have entire confidence in him, either," agreed
Mrs. Farrell.

But the intelligence that there was still coal in the bin had cheered her
wonderfully. Repenting of her rash conclusion, she hastened to qualify
it by adding, "That is, if half of what the neighbors say is true. But,
then, we have no right to listen to gossip, or to judge people."

Stingy Willis, the individual who apparently bore an unenviable
reputation, was a small, dried-up looking old man, who lived next door to
the Farrells,--in fact, under the same roof; for the structure consisted
of two houses built together. Here he dwelt alone, and attended to his
household arrangements himself, except when, occasionally, a woman was
employed for a few hours to put the place in order. He was accustomed to
prepare his own breakfast and supper; his dinner he took at a cheap
restaurant. He dressed shabbily, and was engaged in some mysterious
business down town, to and from which he invariably walked; not even a
heavy rain-storm could make him spend five cents for a ride in a
horse-car. And yet he was said to be very wealthy. Persons declared
they knew "upon good authority" that he held the mortgage which covered
the two connecting houses; that, as the expression is, he "had more money
than he knew what to do with." Others, who did not profess to be so
scrupulously exact in their determination to tell only a plain,
unvarnished tale, delighted in fabulous stories concerning his riches.
They said that though the floor of his sitting-room was carpetless, and
the bay-window curtainless but for the cobwebs, he could cover the one
with gold pieces and the other with bank-notes, if he pleased. Many were
convinced he had a bag of treasure hidden up the chimney or buried in the
cellar; this they asserted was the reason he would not consent to having
the upper rooms of the house rented, and so they remained untenanted
season after season. Thus, according to the general verdict (and
assuredly the circumstantial evidence was strong), he was a miser of the
most pronounced type,--"as stingy as could be," everybody agreed; and is
not what everybody says usually accepted as the truth?

Certain it is that Stingy Willis acted upon the principle, "a penny saved
is a penny gained,"--denied himself every luxury, and lived with extreme
frugality, as t