, with nothin' but a lot of rank amateurs
against him. Soon's the rest saw what they was up against they all
laid down, for he was makin' 'em look like six car fares. Course,
there wa'n't nothin' to do but join the gallery and watch him win in a
walk.

"Oh, it's a bust of Bismarck, isn't it?" says one of the women. "How
clever of you, Count!"

At that Skippy throws out his chest and begins to chuck in the
flourishes. That kind of business suited him down to the ground. He
cocks his head on one side, twists up his lip whiskers like Billy the
Tooth, and goes through all the motions of a man that knows he's givin'
folks a treat.

"Hates himself, don't he?" says I. "He must have graduated from some
tombstone foundry."

Pinckney was wild. So was Sadie and Mrs. Purdy Pell, on account of the
free-for-all bein' turned into a game of solitaire.

"I just wish," says Sadie, "that there was some way of taking him down
a peg. If I only knew of someone who----"

"I do, if you don't," says I.

Say, what do you reckon had been cloggin' my thought works all that
time. I takes the three of 'em to one side and springs my proposition,
tellin' 'em I'd put it through if they'd stand for it. Would they?
They're so tickled they almost squeals.

I gets Swifty Joe at the Studio on the long distance and gives him his
instructions. It was a wonder he got it straight, for sometimes you
can't get an idea into his head without usin' a brace and bit, but this
trip he shows up for a high brow. Pretty quick we gets word that it's
all O. K. Pinckney bulletins it to the crowd that, while Sadie's
pulled out of the competition, she's asked leave to put on a sub, and
that the prize awardin' will be delayed until after the returns are all
in.

Meantime I climbs into the sleigh and goes down to meet the express.
Sure enough, Cornelia Ann was aboard, a bit hazy about the kind of a
stunt that's expected of her, but ready for anything. I don't go into
many details, for fear of givin' her stage fright; but I lets her know
that if she's got any sculpturin' tricks up her sleeve now's the time
to shake 'em out.

"I've been tellin' some friends of mine," says I, "that when it comes
to clay art, or plaster of paris art, you was the real lollypop; and I
reckoned that if you could do pieces in mud, you could do 'em just as
well in snow."

"Snow!" says she. "Why, I never tried."

Maybe I'd banked too much on Cornelia, or perhaps she was rig