itted _twice_" rejoined Jim. "It is the admittance. I
didn't see any notice about not staying, and I don't believe I really
owe Mr. Barnum another quarter."

"Jim, I think I'll educate you for a lawyer. You have such a way of
squirming out of tight places."

They all laughed.

"Mother, do give the children some supper," said their father.

"Here, Jim, pay your mother." Steve laid him down sixpence and three
pennies. We had Mexican sixpences and shillings in those days. "You'll
have enough on your mind without that debt. And next time think of the
folks at home."

"Why didn't the Whitneys feel worried? Oh, thank you, Steve."

"It did beat all," said Mrs. Underhill. "There Mrs. Whitney sat reading
a novel----"

"Perhaps it was her French exercise," interrupted Steve, with a twinkle
in his eye.

"It was no such thing! It was a yellow-covered novel!" I don't know why
they persisted in putting novels in pronounced yellow covers to betray
people, unless it was that publishers wouldn't use false pretences. And
to put a story in the fatal color made it as reprehensible to most
people as a yellow aster. "And such a table!" Mrs. Underhill caught her
breath. "Everything at sixes and sevens, and the cloth looking as if it
had been used a month, and Mrs. Whitney as unconcerned as if the
children had only gone down to the corner. I declare I couldn't be
so--so----"

"But they're a jolly lot. They save a great deal of strength in not
worrying. And they know Dele is trusty. She's a smart girl, too."

"Well, I wouldn't want any of my sons to marry girls brought up as those
Whitneys."

"Hear that, Jim. You are fairly warned."

Jim turned scarlet.

"Jim will have to be in better business many a year than thinking of
girls," subjoined his mother decisively.

The little girl didn't seem very hungry. She ate her bread-and-milk and
talked over the delights of the afternoon, and her enjoyment mollified
her mother a good deal. Jim considered at first whether it wouldn't
rather even up things if he went without his supper, but the biscuits
and the boiled beef were so tempting, and in those days boys could eat
the twenty-four hours round. People were wont to say they had the
digestion of an ostrich. But I think if you had tried them on nails and
old shoes the ostrich would have gone up head.

"Oh, do you see how late it is? I know Hanny will be sick to-morrow! And
Jim, you'll have the doctor's bill to pay."

"Oh, no," said H