"
"You're that anyway, so what difference does it make?"
"I'd rather die."
"You'd save a lot of money and trouble if you did."
"Just look at the list of presents I must give."
She handed him a bundle of papers. He pushed up his spectacles and put
on his reading glasses, and instantly snorted:
"Say! What is this? the town directory?"
He had not read far down the list when he missed one important name.
"You've overlooked Mrs. Alsop."
"Oh, her! I've quarreled with her. We don't speak, thank heaven."
"It would be money In your pocket, if you didn't speak to anybody.
Gosh!" he slapped his knee. "I have an idea. Stop speaking to
everybody."
"Don't he silly."
"I mean it."
VII
FOILED
Ulysses S. G. Budlong was a man fertile in ideas and unflinching in
their execution. Otherwise he would never have attained his present
unquestioned supremacy, as the leading hay and feed merchant in
Carthage.
"It's as easy as falling off a log," he urged. "You women are always
spatting about something. Now's your chance to capitalize your spats."
"Men are such im-boo-hoo-ciles!" was Mrs. Budlong's comment, as she
began to weep. Her husband patted her with a timid awkwardness as if
she were the nose of a strange horse. "There! there! we'll fix this up
fine. What did you quarrel with Mrs.
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