o, so I
guess you ain't lying now.'

"But ma lit into me, and spent two hours, steady talk, convincing me
I wasn't W. P. Mills, although every time she said I wasn't I said so,
too. The more I agreed that I wasn't the more she would fire up and take
a fresh hold, and try to bear it home to me that I wasn't. There was
never in the world such a long fight, with both sides saying the same
thing. Ordinary persons couldn't have done it, but hat lady mother
could, an' did, an' every now an' then she would dig into Sammy again.
An' all of it was right near to that enthusiastical stove. So at last
she laid a couple of extra hard words against us an' we keeled over,
as you might say, an' toppled out of the kitchen. We was dazed with
language that was all words, an' when we come to the gate we was so
stupefied that we climbed right over it, an' so weak that we fell down
off the other side of it, an' Sammy all the time repeatin' 'Eliph'
Hewlitt,' like a man in a dream. By next day he was able to leave the
hotel, an' he took the train, an' I ain't seen him until this day, so
I guess he stuck right to that name, for fear he might meet the talkin'
lady again. I don't see how he could get the name out of his system when
once Katie's ma had talked it in, anyway, for she was a great talker. I
ought to know, for I went back an' chinned with Katie as soon as I
got the daze out of my head, an' the long-come short-come of it was I
married Katie.

"When Sammy comes back I want to ask him if he sold out all them 'Wage
of Sin' books. I never sold but one, an' I didn't sell that--I gave it
to Katie for a wedding present."

"You done right when you gave up the book agent business, Jim," said Pap
Briggs. "There ought to be a license agin all of 'em."

CHAPTER VI. The Castaway

Eliph' Hewlitt, when he reached the large, yellow house, found the door
open. The sale was well over. The gingham aprons and the cat-stitched
dusting cloths were all sold, and only a few crocheted slipper-bags
and similar luxuries remained, and these were being offered at greatly
reduced prices, much to the chagrin of the ladies who had contributed
them. The cashiers were counting the results of the evening's business,
and the other ladies were grouped about the minister, who stood in
the middle of the parlor, laughingly explaining the merits of a
plush-covered rolling-pin he had purchased in a moment of folly.

Eliph' Hewlitt tapped on the door to call attenti