r that
I would take the lot of reversibles he had on hand, if he would include
the one already purchased, and receive ninety-seven dollars and a half
as the balance due.

"All right!" said he. "I have the ninety-nine still on hand. Are you in
the tea business, sir?"

"Oh, no," said I; "the pictures are intended for a large Association."

"No better way of extending the influence of art, sir," he said,
heartily. "I shall charge you nothing for boxing. The same address,
sir?"

"No, they must be forwarded to my residence," and I gave him the needful
directions, and a check.

The next day the ninety-nine pictures arrived and were stored in my
barn. My wife, to whom I had told my plan, made some objections to it,
saying it did not seem right to use half the money paid in to buy so
many pictures; but I told her that no one could expect in a raffle to
clear all the money subscribed, and that although we should not gain as
much as I had hoped, we should clear a hundred dollars, and every man
would have a picture. This was surely fair, and the fact was that the
unsympathetic state of mind of our members made it necessary for me to
do something of this kind, if I expected to raise the needed money at
all.

The raffle was announced, and on the appointed evening there was a full
attendance. The prize was won by a Mr. Horter, an art-collector of a
nervous temperament, who had objected to the raffle, and who had
consented to buy a ticket only after repeated solicitations.

"Now mind," he said to me, "you promised that the other men should not
laugh at me, and I hold you to your contract."

I answered that I intended to stand by it, and that the painting should
be sent to him in the morning from my house, whither it had been
removed. Every member present announced his intention of calling on
Horter the following evening to see why he should not be laughed at.

All the next forenoon my man, with a horse and light wagon, was engaged
in delivering the reversible landscapes, one to every member of our
club. These gentlemen were, in almost every case, absent at their places
of business. When they came home in the evening each found his picture,
with his name on the back of it, and a printed slip informing him that
in this raffle there had been no blanks, and that every man had drawn a
prize.

Not a man called upon Mr. Horter that evening, and he greatly wondered
why they did not come in, either to laugh or to say why they shou