pped, en route, upon the stately toe of Lindon's pride.

"Gee!" he burst forth contritely. "I'm awful sorry, honest Injun I am.
Spoiled yer shine, didn't I? An' it was a beaut, too!"

Could even a first citizen rebuke such eager apology? Better to stay
within the certain shelter of a chilling silence.

[Illustration]

Abner Sawyer rose, but even as he did so his world of law and order
seemed to rock in chaos about his feet. He was going out to supper--and
he had not read a single line in the Lindon _Evening News_!

[Illustration]

[Illustration]

II

THE BISCUIT LINK

It was at supper that the terrible realization came to Abner Sawyer that
Jimsy liked everything and _every one_ rather too well. He liked the ham
and he liked the biscuits, he accepted alarming quantities of marmalade
with utter confidence in his digestion; his round eyes swept every nook
of the prim old room and marveled at old-fashioned china and silver that
might have come over in the _Mayflower_, and then again might not, and
he continued irreverently unaware that the first citizen was president
of the Lindon Bank and therefore not a person to be liked
indiscriminately by urchins. Thanks to something in Aunt Judith's eyes,
furtively concessional to boyhood, Jimsy had mislaid what little
constraint and shyness he had had at first. His at-homeness might be
gauged at a glance by the way he gazed at the biscuits.

"Dear me," said Aunt Judith, glancing from Jimsy to the biscuits to see
which most threatened the other, "I--I scarcely think--I hardly know.
Abner?"

Time, Abner, now to impress this urchin once for all with a show of
power in terms he can understand!

Mr. Sawyer settled the trivial question of biscuits with dignity.

"James," he said. "You may have just _one_ more biscuit."

And Aunt Judith nodded:

"Just as you say, my dear!" as she had been nodding effasively for
thirty years.

Jimsy's eyes were very grateful and it came over the first citizen with
sickening conviction that Jimsy, misinterpreting again, had regarded the
biscuit as an overture instead of a show of power. Ridiculous indeed to
have thrown about your neck the unwelcome chain of a boy's regard and
then unintentionally to cement that chain--by a biscuit!

Abner Sawyer departed hastily for his lamp, his fire and his paper.

[Illustration]

Jimsy followed Aunt Judith to the kitchen and here, in the shining
quiet of an old-fashioned kitchen whose spotles