in your white bread. They have to
drink it here in Wilkesbarre, the water is so bad.

"When man and water both are ill,
A little wheat-juice fills the bill.

"Try some, you'll find it good."

Ralph was thirsty, and he sipped a little of the mixture; but he did
not like it very well, and he drank no more of it.

"Who is going to carry on the suit for you?" continued Rhyming Joe;
"have you got a lawyer?"

"Oh, yes! Lawyer Sharpman; he's very smart, too. He's goin' to manage
it."

"And when will the trial come off? Perhaps I may be of some assistance
to you and to my quondam friend, your sometime grandfather. I would
drop all bitterness of feeling, all vain enmity, if I might do the
revered patriarch a favor.

"My motto has been, and my motto is yet,
That it frequently pays to forgive and forget."

"Oh! I don't know," Ralph replied; "it'll be two or three months yet,
anyway, I guess."

Rhyming Joe gazed thoughtfully at the stove.

Bummerton came and began to take away the dishes.

"What's your bill, landlord?" inquired Joe.

"D'ye want the bill for both of ye?"

"Certainly. My young friend here, if I remember rightly, invited me to
dine with him. I am his guest, and he foots the bills. See?"

Ralph did not remember to have asked Rhyming Joe to dine with him, but
he did not want to appear mean, so he said:--

"Yes, I'll foot the bill; how much is it?" taking out his little
leather wallet as he spoke.

"It'll be three dollars," said Bummerton; "a dollar an' a quarter
apiece for the dinner, an' a quarter apiece for the drinks."

Ralph looked up in amazement. He had never before heard of a dinner
being worth so much money.

"Oh! it's all right," said Joe. "This is rather a high-priced hotel;
but they get up everything in first-class style, do you see?

"If in style you drink and eat,
Lofty bills you'll have to meet."

"But I ain't got that much money," said Ralph, unstrapping his wallet.

"How much have ye got?" inquired the bar-tender.

"I've only got a dollar'n eighty-two cents."

"Well, you see, sonny," said Bummerton, "that ain't more'n half
enough. Ye shouldn't order such a fancy dinner 'nless ye've got money
to pay for it."

"But I didn't know it was goin' to cost so much," protested Ralph.
"Uncle Billy an' me got jest as good a dinner last Fourth o' July at
a place in Scranton, an' it didn't cost both of us but seventy cents.
Besides, I don't b'lieve--"

"Look here, Bummert