eaning, but they are not trusted with the desks, and so the
attendants have to take turns doing that part of it. That's why your
father has to leave so very early in the morning."

Mother and son lapsed into silence once more. It was broken by another
question from the boy.

"Why couldn't I take some stamps that had been thrown away?"

"Had your father said anything about it before you took them?"

"He told me not to touch anything."

"Then you couldn't because he had told you to leave things alone. He is
so careful in all such matters. Sometimes he goes a little too far,
perhaps, but you can be sure that he means right. Other people want the
stamps, and there is a lot of gossip and envy about everything, and he
is too proud to be dragged into that sort of thing. It is always better,
Keith, to leave alone what you know is not your own. Honesty endures
beyond all else."

Keith made no direct response, but sprang one more irrelevant question:

"Why didn't papa get the grocery store?"

"How do you know," the mother demanded with a quick glance at him.

"Papa told me."

"Well," she drawled as if thinking. Then she settled back in the chair,
her mind made up. "Listen, and I will tell you a story. Once upon a time
there was a rich old man who owned a grocery store."

"That's where they sell prunes and raisins and sugar," the boy put in.

"And the store was so fine," she went on unheedingly, "that the old man
was permitted to sell all those things to the king's own kitchen. The
old man had many assistants, but at the head of them all was a young man
who knew just what to do, because he had worked in such stores ever
since he was a little boy. And he was so honest and able and polite that
the people liked him very much and came to the store for his sake, but
the old man liked him more anybody else."

"Was the old man nice," Keith asked.

"Yes, indeed, but he was also very peculiar, and the most peculiar thing
about him was that he hated all women and thought that a man who married
was lost for ever."

"Did he have any children?"

"No, men who want no wives get no children. That is a part of their
punishment. And so when the owner of the store got older and older, and
began to feel tired, he didn't know to whom he should leave the store.
You may be sure that he thought it over many times, because he was
exceedingly proud of the store and wanted it to go on. The result of his
thinking was that he decided to giv