s me to it,
isn't it?"

"Me?" The Butterfly Man looked pained. "I'm not telling you to buy
anything. _I'm_ only thinking of the obituaries. Ask the parson.
I'm--I'm addicted to 'em, like some people are to booze. But if you'd
promise to keep open the old corner for them, why, I might come out
and _beg_ you to buy the _Clarion_, now it's going so cheap. Yep--all
on account of the obituaries!" And he murmured:

"_Our dear little Johnny was left alive
To reach the interesting age of five
When_--"

"That's just about as much as I can stand of that, my son!" said I,
hastily.

"The parson's got an awful tender heart," the Butterfly Man explained
and Laurence was graceless enough to grin.

"Well, as I was about to say: I happened to think Inglesby would be
brute enough to choke out my pet column, or make folks pay for it, and
things like that haven't got any business to have price tags on 'em.
So I got to thinking of you. You're young and tender; also a college
man; and you're itching to wash and iron Appleboro--" he took off his
glasses and wiped them delicately and deliberately.

"Did you also get to thinking," said Laurence, crisply, "that I'm just
about making my salt at present, and still you're suggesting that I
tie a dead old newspaper about my neck and jump overboard? One might
fancy you hankered to add my obituary to your collection!" he finished
with a touch of tartness.

The Butterfly Man smiled ever so gently.

"The _Clarion_ is the county paper," he explained patiently. "It was
here first. It's been here a long time, and people are used to it. It
knows by heart how they think and feel and how they want to be told
they think and feel. And you ought to know Carolina people when it
comes right down to prying them loose from something they're used to!"
He paused, to let that sink in.

"There's no reason why the _Clarion_ should keep on being a dead one,
is there? There's plenty room for a live daily right here and now, if
it was run right. Why, this town's blue-molded for a live paper! Look
here: You go buy the _Clarion_. It won't cost you much. Believe me,
you'll find it mighty handy--power of the press, all the usual guff,
you know! I sha'n't have to worry about obituaries, but I bet you
dollars to doughnuts some people will wake up some morning worrying a
whole lot about editorials. Mayne--people like to think they think
what they think themselves. They don't. They think what their home