y offered me a fresh cigar and took another himself.

"It's a class of profit that's difficult to estimate," he remarked. "I
had a difficulty with Isaac over the matter. You see he has 5 per cent.
over the business that he introduces, but that was only meant for small
transactions, I argued. He argued that there were no profits at all; not
meaning any disrespect to her, but holding that there was no money in
it; or, if there was, it was a loss because I'd have to keep her, and
nobody knew how a wife would turn out. She held much the same, except
that she was sure she was going to turn out good; but she thought I
ought to find some plan of doing something for Isaac. We settled it that
way. He wanted to get married, so I gave him a rise and let them have
the rooms over the shop to live in; and there they are now."

"And how do you reckon the profits yourself?" I asked.

"Well," he said "in these last eight years I've cleared forty thousand
pounds, though you wouldn't think it in this little shop. I reckon that
I cleared a good bit more over that ditty-box. Come round to my house
one evening, and I'll introduce you to her."

IV

THE YELLOW CAT

An Idyll of the Summer

By ANNIE E.P. SEARING

THE minister of Blue Mountain Church, and the minister's wife, were
enjoying their first autumn fire, and the presence of the cat on the
hearth between them.

"He came home this afternoon," the minister's wife was saying, "while I
was picking those last peppers in the garden, and he jumped on my
shoulder and purred against my ear as unconcernedly as if he'd only been
for a stroll in the lower pasture, instead of gone for three months--the
little wretch!"

"It does seem extraordinary"--the minister unbent his long legs and
recrossed them carefully, in order to remove his foot from the way of
the tawny back where it stretched out in blissful elongation--"very
extraordinary, that an animal could lead that sort of double life,
disappearing completely when summer comes and returning promptly with
the fall. I daresay it's a reversion to the old hunting instinct. No
doubt we could find him if we knew how to trail him on the mountains."

"The strangest thing about it is that this year and last he came back
fat and sleek--always before, you know, he has been so gaunt and starved
looking in the fall." She leaned over and stroked the cat under his
chin; he purred deeply in response, and looked up into her eyes, his own
like w