And when the Grocer's Nephew got suspended from college for sitting up too late at night and getting headaches, and came to spend a month with his Uncle and couldn't find his green plaid overcoat when it was time to go home he was perfectly positive that somebody had borrowed it from the store! Or that he'd dropped it out of the delivery wagon working over-time! Or that he'd left it at the High School Social! But Old Man Smith found it for him just by glancing at his purple socks! And his plaid necktie. And his plush waistcoat. "Oh, yes, of course, it's perfectly possible," said Old Man Smith, "that you dropped it from the basket of a balloon on your way to a Missionary Meeting.--But have you looked in the Young Widow Gayette's back hall? 'Bout three pegs from the door?--Where the shadows are fairly private?--One dollar, please!" said Old Man Smith. And when the Old Preacher lost the Hymn Book that George Washington had given his grandfather, everybody started to take up the floor of the church to see if it had fallen down through a crack in the pulpit! But Old Man Smith sent a boy running to beg 'em not to tear down the church till they'd looked in the Old Lawyer's pantry,--'bout the second shelf between the ice chest and the cheese crock. Sunday evening after meeting was rather a lean time with Old Preachers he said he'd always noticed.--And Old Lawyers was noted for their fat larders.--And there were certain things about cheese somehow that seemed to be soothin' to the memory. "Why, how perfectly extraordinary!" said everybody. "One dollar, please!" said Old Man Smith again. And when Little Tommy Bent ran away to the city his Mother hunted all the hospitals for him! And made 'em drag the river! And wore a long black veil all the time! And howled! But Old Man Smith said, "Oh Shucks! It ain't at all probable, is it, that he was aimin' at hospitals or rivers when he went away?--What's the use of worryin' over the things he _weren't_ aimin' at till you've investigated the things he _was_?" "Aimin' at?" sobbed Mrs. Bent. "Aimin' at?--Who in the world could ever tell what any little boy was aimin' at?" "And there's something in that, too!" said Old Man Smith. "What did he look like?" "Like his father," said Mrs. Bent. "U-m-m. Plain, you mean?" said Old Man Smith. "He was only nine years old," sobbed Mrs. Bent. "But he did love Meetings so! No matter what they was about he was always hunting for some new Meetings to go to! He just seemed naturally to dote hisself on any crowd of people that was all facing the other way looking at somebody else! He had a little cowlick at the back of his neck!" sobbed Mrs. Bent. "It was a comical little cowlick! People used to laugh at it! He never liked to sit any place where there was anybody sitting behind him!" "Now you're talking!" said Old Man Smith. "Will he answer to the name of 'Little Tommy Bent?'" "He will not!" said Mrs. Bent "He's that stubborn! He's exactly like his Father!"