rom the low tree under which he stood, bit into it, chewed without
enthusiasm, then hurled the remnant at an immature rabbit that he saw
regarding him from the edge of the lilac clump. The missile went wild,
but the rabbit fled and Bean pursued it. He was not afraid of a
rabbit--not of a young rabbit.

Returning from the chase, an unavailing one, he believed, only because
the game used quite unfair tactics of concealment, he remembered the
shell. A longing for possession seized him. It was more than that. The
thing was already his; had always been his. Yet he foresaw
complications. His ownership might be stupidly denied.

He went in to drag Grammer again before the whatnot, his mind sharpened
to subtlety.

"Are everything there yours?" He pointed to the top shelf.

"Everything!"

He lowered the pointing finger to the second shelf.

"Are everything there yours?"

"All of 'em!"

"Everything _there_?"

"Yes, yes!"

"And this one, too?"

"For the land's sake, yes!" averred Grammer of the choice contents of
the fourth shelf. She was baking pies and found herself a bit impatient
of this new game.

"Well, that's all, now!" and he dismissed her, not daring to inquire as
to the lower shelf. He had seen the way things were going--a sickening
way. But, having shrewdly stopped at the lower shelf, having prevented
Grammer from saying that those valuable objects were also hers, he had
still the right to come into his own. If the shell mightn't belong to
her it might belong to him; therefore it did belong to him; which, as
logic, is not so lame as it sounds. At least it is a workaday average.

It occurred to him once to ask for the shell bluntly. But reason forbade
this. It was not conceivable that any one having so celestial a treasure
would willingly part with it. When a thing was yours you took it, with
dignity, but quietly.

During the remainder of his stay he was not conspicuously an occupant of
the front room. No day passed that he did not contrive at least one look
at his wonderful shell, but he craftily did not linger there, nor did he
ever utter words about the thing, though these often crowded perilously
to his lips.

A later day brought a letter to Grammer, and Gramper delightedly let it
be known that the doctor at Wellsville had brought little Bean a fine
new baby brother. Bean himself was not delighted at this. He had
suffered the ministrations of that same doctor and he could imagine no
visit of his