Here Catty walked up to his father and handed him a piece of paper and whispered in his ear. Mr. Atkins read over the paper and says: “Jest rented a store. Calc’latin’ to move in right sudden. Goin’ to live there, too. Rooms behind the store. Calc’late to do paintin’ and decoratin’ and gen’al contractin’. Rented this store off a feller named Gage. Here’s a paper that says it with his name hitched onto the bottom.” I guess Mr. Gage hadn’t figured that Mr. Atkins was the one that had rented his store. He hadn’t ever seen him, of course, for Catty and me had rented it. When he saw that paper it kind of knocked him off his perch. “Be you the man that’s rented my store?” “Calc’late to be.” “The man that’s got the contract to paint Manning’s warehouse?” “Calc’late to be.” “The man that’s holdin’ this here paintin’-race Monday?” “Calc’late to be.” Mr. Gage scratched his head and looked worried. He shot a glance at his wife and she was scowling to beat everything. But there wasn’t anything for him to do. He swallowed once or twice and says: “Case dismissed. Man that’s in business and rented a store and has got a big contract hain’t no vagrant. Court’s adjourned.” Mrs. Gage got up quick and hustled out of the room, but everybody else stayed, and everybody seemed like he wanted to shake hands with Mr. Atkins and talk to him, and before we knew it the court had turned into a sort of meeting to make arrangements to celebrate the painting-race. They began making plans. First off there was to be a parade with the Silver Cornet Band, and a speech by Representative Capper, who was home from the state capital. There was going to be committees, and the G. A. R. was going to march and the Republican Club and the Knights of Hannibal, and everything. Then the chief of the fire department says they would march and pull their new hose-cart and hook-and-ladder that had never been tried out yet. I saw Catty whispering to a man next to him, and the man got up all of a sudden and says: