hat Nort was not the only one who was expectant. When
you have fired a big gun you want to know that the shot hit somewhere!
The boy was evidently embarrassed by the battery of eyes levelled at
him.

"Sister wants two papers," said he finally. "She says, the papers with
the po'try."

I shall never forget the sight of Nort, head in air, marching over to
the pile of extras, grandly handing two of them to our customer, and
then walking triumphantly across the room and delivering the dime to
Anthy.

"Who was that now?" asked Nort, when the little chap went out.

"That," said Anthy, "was Sophia Rhineheart's brother."

Nort clapped his hand dramatically to his head.

"The false Sophia!" he exclaimed; "I expected that Sophia would want at
least fifty copies of the journal which has made her famous."

The next incident was even more disquieting. An old man named Johnson
came to put a twenty-cent advertisement in the paper "Ten Cords of Wood
for Sale"--and it appeared, after an adroit question by Nort, that,
although he had received that week's paper, he did not even know that we
had published the Poems of Hempfield.

Nort's spirits began to drop, as his face plainly showed. Like many
young men who start out to set the world afire, he was finding the
kindling wood rather damp. Just before noon, however, answering a
telephone call, we saw his eyes brighten perceptibly.

"Thank you," he was saying. "Ten, did you say? All right, you shall have
them. Glad you called early before they are all gone."

He put down the receiver, smiling broadly.

"There," he said, "it's started!"

"Humph," grunted Fergus, and Anthy, leaning back on her stool, laughed
merrily.

But Nort refused to be further depressed. If things did not happen of
themselves in Hempfield, why he was there to make them happen. When he
went out at noon he began asking everybody he met, at the hotel, at the
post office, at the livery stable, whether they had seen the _Star_ that
week. Nort had then been in Hempfield about four months, and the town
had begun to enjoy him--rather nervously, because it was never quite
certain what he would do next. In Hempfield almost everybody was
working for the approval of everybody else, which no one ever attains;
while Nort never seemed to care whether anybody approved him or not.

"Seen the _Star_ this week?" he asked Joe Crane, the liveryman,
apparently controlling his excitement with difficulty.

"No," says Joe. "Why?