d, to find Mr. Price standing beside him.

"I'm all ready to tell you about it now," volunteered the unsmiling
Issy. "Sweepin's all finished up."

Albert was amused. "I guess I can get along," he said.

"Don't worry."

"_I_ ain't worried none. I don't believe in worryin'; worryin' don't do
folks no good, the way I look at it. But long's Cap'n Lote wants me to
tell you about the hardware I'd ruther do it now, than any time. Henry
Cahoon's team'll be here for a load of lath in about ten minutes or so,
and then I'll have to leave you. This here's the shelf where we keep
the butts--hinges, you understand. Brass along here, and iron here. Got
quite a stock, ain't we."

He took the visitor's arm in his mighty paw and led him from shelves
to drawers and from drawers to boxes, talking all the time, so the boy
thought, "like a catalogue." Albert tried gently to break away several
times and yawned often, but yawns and hints were quite lost on his
guide, who was intent only upon the business--and victim--in hand. At
the window looking across toward the main road Albert paused longest.
There was a girl in sight--she looked, at that distance, as if she might
be a rather pretty girl--and the young man was languidly interested.
He had recently made the discovery that pretty girls may be quite
interesting; and, moreover, one or two of them whom he had met at the
school dances--when the young ladies from the Misses Bradshaws' seminary
had come over, duly guarded and chaperoned, to one-step and fox-trot
with the young gentlemen of the school--one or two of these young ladies
had intimated a certain interest in him. So the feminine possibility
across the road attracted his notice--only slightly, of course; the
sophisticated metropolitan notice is not easily aroused--but still,
slightly.

"Come on, come on," urged Issachar Price. "I ain't begun to show ye the
whole of it yet . . . Eh? Oh, Lord, there comes Cahoon's team now! Well,
I got to go. Show you the rest some other time. So long . . . Eh? Cap'n
Lote's callin' you, ain't he?"

Albert went into the office in response to his grandfather's call to
find the latter seated at an old-fashioned roll-top desk, piled with
papers.

"I've got to go down to the bank, Al," he said. "Some business about
a note that Laban ought to be here to see to, but ain't. I'll be back
pretty soon. You just stay here and wait for me. You might be lookin'
over the books, if you want to. I took 'em out o