The sample-cases reached Dunlop and Toll’s ten minutes late, for Mr. Duff had never learned to do anything in a hurry. But the traveling man had evidently not relied very implicitly on Tom’s promise to get them there inside of twenty minutes and seemed quite satisfied. He handed Willard fifty cents and Willard added two dimes to it and passed the amount over to Mr. Duff. “Now remember,” he said sternly, “you’re to hustle when I give you any checks. By the way, if you aren’t at the corner of Walnut Street, where can I find you?” Mr. Duff shook his head slowly. “I dunno. I might be most anywhere, I s’pose. Just you write the order on the slate and I’ll see it.” “Oh, you have a slate, have you? Where is it?” “On the post at the corner. Leastways, it’s there mostly, when the boys don’t steal it on me.” “All right. If you’re not there I’ll write on the slate and you’ll find the checks at the station. I’ll tell the agent to give them to you. Understand, do you?” Mr. Duff nodded calmly. “S’pose I do,” he murmured, as he ambled back to his wagon. Tom, who had remained to make certain that the sample-cases arrived safely, grinned as Willard joined him. “Smart, wide-awake old chap, isn’t he?” he laughed. “He’s a wonder!” agreed Willard. “Actually, it took him ten minutes to get those two cases from the platform to his wagon, Tom! But he will have to do. I’ve arranged with him to look after all our baggage and so Connors needn’t worry us.” “I wonder,” said Tom, as he headed The Ark toward Willard’s house, “if it would pay us to have a horse and wagon of our own?” “I thought of that,” replied Willard. “I don’t believe it would, hardly. They say it costs about six dollars a week to feed a horse, and――――” “Six dollars a week!” exclaimed Tom. “What on? Chicken and asparagus?” “Oats and hay. It’s a fact. Feed is awfully high. Then there’d be the price of the horse and wagon.” “We might hire them,” reflected Tom. “Well, we will see how your friend Mr. Duff gets along. He may do all right.” “He’d be fine,” laughed Willard, “if folks weren’t particular about getting their trunks the day they arrived!” On the whole, however, Mr. Duff proved, during the next fortnight, fairly satisfactory. Several times, when he had trunks to deliver to different addresses he managed to get them mixed and so left them at the wrong places, and he was exasperatingly slow, but for that matter Connors himself was far from infallible and Audelsville was not very exacting in such matters.