such a
place during those gruesome night hours. I couldn't have it at all."

Dalton laughed outright.

"Positively, Miss Lavillotte, you are too funny! Do you expect to do
away with everything disagreeable in your model village?"

"I wish I could, but I do not hope for that. Disagreeable people, who
oppose one in everything, will always exist, I fear." Her tone was
innocently sad. "But I do mean to try and eradicate what is
unnecessarily disagreeable, if scheming can do it. And now, if you are
through laughing, Mr. Dalton, I will tell you how I propose to pay for
this telephone service without feeling it so severely as you seem to
think I shall."

"I am listening, madam."

"Well, I have made a contract, only awaiting your approval and
signature, to furnish the glass insulators and the jars, so many
thousand a year--wait! I have the figures here somewhere. I never could
remember figures--ah! here it is--in exchange."

"You have? Well, I declare! You really do show aptitude for business,
I'll have to own."

"Don't I?" laughing with as much pleasure as a child that has turned
scolding into praise. "I'm delighted about it in more ways than one. It
will give employment to our unskilled hands, who are now idle half the
time. Even the children can turn a penny on their holidays, if they
like."

Dalton caught at the paper and looked it over with careful scrutiny, his
face lighting as he gazed.

"Really!" he said at length, glancing up to give her an approving nod,
"really, this isn't bad--that is, I mean you have made a good bargain,
for all I can see, and given us the opportunity to work up a new line
that may prove lucrative. I wouldn't have thought it of a girl--a young
lady like you."

She laughed amusedly.

"I'm glad I have been able to please you at last, Mr. Dalton! The
electricians will begin wiring the town in a few days. They will put in
a cheap style of 'phone, as it is not looks we are after but
convenience, and will hurry the work right through." She stopped with
some hesitation of manner, but looked as if more was to come, and her
manager gave her a respectful, questioning glance.

"There's another thing," she said presently in a rather faint voice,
"the central office is also to be an exchange."

"A--what?"

"An exchange. You see, that's really my main reason for having the
'phones. I want my people to learn what the one right principle of
exchange is. We talk about money being the medium of