f the dear old Pontiac, don't you see?"

This exhaustive commercial reasoning was so sympathetic to Mr. Nott's
instincts that he accepted it as conclusive. He, however, deemed it
wise to still preserve his practical attitude. "But that don't make it
pay by the month, Rosey. Suthin' must be done. I'm thinking I'll
clean out that photographer."

"Not just after he's taken such a pretty view of the cabin front of the
Pontiac from the street, father! No! he's going to give us a copy, and
put the other in a shop window in Montgomery Street."

"That's so," said Mr. Nott, musingly; "it's no slouch of an
advertisement. 'The Pontiac,' the property of A. Nott, Esq., of St.
Jo, Missouri. Send it on to your Aunt Phoebe; sorter make the old
folks open their eyes--oh? Well, seein' he's been to some expense
fittin' up an entrance from the other street, we'll let him slide. But
as to that d----d old Frenchman Ferrers, in the next loft, with his
stuck-up airs and high-falutin style, we must get quit of him; he's
regularly gouged me in that ere horsehair spekilation."

"How can you say that, father!" said Rosey, with a slight increase of
color. "It was your own offer. You know those bales of curled
horsehair were left behind by the late tenant to pay his rent. When Mr.
de Ferrieres rented the room afterwards, you told him you'd throw them
in in the place of repairs and furniture. It was your own offer."

"Yes, but I didn't reckon ther'd ever be a big price per pound paid for
the darned stuff for sofys and cushions and sich."

"How do you know HE knew it, father?" responded Rosey.

"Then why did he look so silly at first, and then put on airs when I
joked him about it, eh?"

"Perhaps he didn't understand your joking, father. He's a foreigner,
and shy and proud, and--not like the others. I don't think he knew
what you meant then, any more than he believed he was making a bargain
before. He may be poor, but I think he's been--a--a--gentleman."

The young girl's animation penetrated even Mr. Nott's slow
comprehension. Her novel opposition, and even the prettiness it
enhanced, gave him a dull premonition of pain. His small round eyes
became abstracted, his mouth remained partly open, even his fresh color
slightly paled.

"You seem to have been takin' stock of this yer man, Rosey," he said,
with a faint attempt at archness; "if he warn't ez old ez a crow, for
all his young feathers, I'd think he was makin' up to you