hain't had the advantigis of your bringin' up." After some preliminary talk--"Say," he said to John, "got stuck with any more countyfit money lately?" John's face reddened a little and Dick laughed. "The old man told me about it," he said. "Say, you'd ought to done as he told ye to. You'd 'a' saved fifteen dollars," Dick declared, looking at our friend with an expression of the utmost amusement. "I don't quite understand," said John rather stiffly. "Didn't he tell ye to charge 'em up to the bank, an' let him take 'em?" asked Dick. "Well?" said John shortly. "Oh, yes, I know," said Mr. Larrabee. "He said sumpthin' to make you think he was goin' to pass 'em out, an' you didn't give him no show to explain, but jest marched into the back room an' stuck 'em onto the fire. Ho, ho, ho, ho! He told me all about it," cried Dick. "Say," he declared, "I dunno 's I ever see the old man more kind o' womble-cropped over anythin'. Why, he wouldn't no more 'a' passed them bills 'n he'd 'a' cut his hand off. He, he, he, he! He was jest ticklin' your heels a little," said Mr. Larrabee, "to see if you'd kick, an'," chuckled the speaker, "you _surely_ did." "Perhaps I acted rather hastily," said John, laughing a little from contagion. "Wa'al," said Dick, "Dave's got ways of his own. I've summered an' wintered with him now for a good many years, an' _I_ ain't got to the bottom of him yet, an'," he added, "I don't know nobody that has." CHAPTER XXIX. Although, as time went on and John had come to a better insight of the character of the eccentric person whom Dick had failed to fathom, his half-formed prejudices had fallen away, it must be admitted that he ofttimes found him a good deal of a puzzle. The domains of the serious and the facetious in David's mind seemed to have no very well defined boundaries. The talk had drifted back to the people and gossip of Homeville, but, sooth to say, it had not on this occasion got far away from those topics. "Yes," said Mr. Harum, "Alf Verjoos is on the hull the best off of any of the lot. As I told ye, he made money on top of what the old man left him, an' he married money. The fam'ly--some on 'em--comes here in the summer, an' he's here part o' the time gen'ally, but the women folks won't stay here winters, an' the house is left in care of Alf's sister who never got married. He don't care a hill o' white beans fer anything in Homeville but the old place, and he don't cal'late to have nobody on his grass, not if he knows it. Him an' me are on putty friendly terms, but the fact is," said David, in a semi-confidential tone, "he's about an even combine of pykery an' viniger, an' about as pop'lar in gen'ral 'round here as a skunk in a hen-house; but Mis' Verjoos is putty well liked; an' one o' the girls, Claricy is her name, is a good deal of a fav'rit. Juliet, the other one, don't mix with the village folks much, an' sometimes don't come with the fam'ly at all. She favors her father," remarked the historian.