As the clerk looked into those blazing eyes and saw the tines brandished before his nose, the jocose mood suddenly abandoned him. He ran round the counter, picked up the hat, brushed it with his sleeve, and handed it back to the ferocious knight of the pitchfork. “I didn’t mean anything, really I didn’t,” he said humbly. “I thought you were joking, especially as you came in with that fellow—that gentleman there. Do you want some tacks? What size, eights?” “I want nothing,” growled Tompkins, lowering the fork. “I wouldn’t buy a rivet in this place if you’d give me the whole store and throw in the clerks to sweep up and open the nail kegs. Come on, Don!” [Illustration: “PICK UP THAT HAT, DO YOU HEAR!”—_Page 118._] “I’m learning fast,” declared Donald, on the sidewalk, after several vain efforts to control his laughter so as to make himself intelligible. “What’s the next lesson going to be?” Tompkins was too busy thinking to pay attention to poor jokes. “You stay out of the next store—do you hear?” he said threateningly. At Cutler’s, Tompkins merely put his head inside. The clerk sat in a chair near the door, passing the noon hour in idleness. Tompkins held up a coin. “I’ve five cents or ten cents or a quarter or whatever is necessary, and I’d like to buy a paper of tacks. If you can sell me some without hitting me or calling me names, I’d like to come in and buy. There’s something queer about the tack business in this town.” “I think I can,” replied the man, good-naturedly. “Come in.” As the salesman produced the laboriously sought tacks, Donald, whose curiosity was beyond control, opened the door and slipped in. “You keep out!” cried Tompkins, warningly. “Oh, he’s here again, is he?” said the clerk, laughing. “Has he been here before?” demanded Tompkins. “Yes, about five minutes ago.” “That lad here five minutes ago? Why, he hasn’t been out of my sight for the last half hour.” The clerk shook his head. “He was here not five minutes ago. He asked me if I had tacks, and when I said yes, he said, ‘Sit on them,’ and lit out.” “By George!” said Tommy, slowly, as the truth came home to him, “the little rat has scored again, and scored hard, too. They are twins, you see,” he vouchsafed in explanation to the only man in town who would sell him tacks, “they are twins, and one of them, knowing I was after tacks, has gone around and stirred up a hornet’s nest in every store. Then when I came along with the other twin, I got stung.” When Tompkins issued forth from the store of the willing salesman, Donald was nowhere to be seen. Where the latter had gone, or why, it is perhaps superfluous to explain. He bounded up the dormitory stairs, panting a continuous stream of exclamation and chuckle. Duncan was standing on the threshold of Number Seventeen, a picture of ecstatic expectancy. “Did it work?” he asked eagerly.