u're going to behave!" This from Peter,
disgustedly.

"Ain't you, suh? All right, suh, Mistuh Champneys, you 's be boss.
But I glad to my Gawd Miss Maria ain't 'yuh to see dis day!" And
Emma began to sniffle.

Peter pushed his untouched dinner aside, and reached for his hat. He
looked at Emma Campbell irefully.

"Damn!" exploded Peter.

Emma Campbell got to her feet with astounding quickness, ran into
the kitchen, and returned in a moment with another platter of
chicken, rice, and gravy.

"'Yuh, chile. Set down en eat yo' bittles. You ain't called on to
hab no hard feelin's 'bout _dis_ chicken. 'T ain't none o' ours,
nohow." Peter resumed his chair and waived cross-examination.

Mr. Champneys having come, so to speak, between dark and daylight,
Riverton knew nothing about his visit, for Peter hadn't thought to
inform them. This affair seemed so unreal, so improbable, so up in
the air, that he dared not mention it. Suppose it mightn't be true,
after all. Suppose fate played a cruel joke. Suppose Mr. Champneys
changed his mind. So Peter, who had a horror of talk, and writhed
when asked personal questions by people who felt that they had a
perfect right to know all about his business, kept strict silence,
and enjoined the same silence upon Emma Campbell, who could be
trusted to hold her tongue when bidden.

Now, one simply cannot remember the price of pots and pans and
sheet-iron and plows and ax-handles, when one is living in the
beginning of an astounding fairy story, when the most momentous
change is impending, when one's whole way of life is about to be
diverted into different channels. The things one hates, like being a
hardware clerk, for instance, automatically slide into the
background when the desire of the heart approaches.

But Mr. Humphreys, whose mind and fortune naturally enough centered
in his hardware store, couldn't be expected to know that the
impossible had happened for Peter Champneys. He would hardly be able
to take Peter's bare word for it, even if Peter should tell him: he
didn't know that his absent-minded clerk really liked him, and
longed to tell him that he was leaving Riverton shortly--he hoped
for years and years--and was only awaiting the message that should
speed his departure. Mr. Humphreys, then, cannot be blamed for
complaining with feeling and profanity that of all the damidjits he
had ever seen in his life, Peter Champneys was about the worst.
Loony was no name for him, and w