"I've got one friend, you see, Princess," chuckled my king of the Emporium. "You've got two," said I. "Well, now, that's mighty pretty of you. Say, do you mean it, honour bright?" "Honour bright," I repeated. "Then I wonder if I might ask a little favour of you?" "Of course. What is it?" "I'll tell you before we part. But come on down now, girls. I want you should both choose a present to take home." We picked our way down the steep stairs, littered with the overflow from shelves and counters. In the principal "show room," if one could call it that, he pressed us to accept some jewellery--poor stuff, but the best he had, and he ingenuously admired it. We steadfastly refused, however, and Patty took a Japanese fan, while I selected several choice specimens of chewing gum, as being novel and characteristic. By this time the "ice cream festival" was beginning. It was held in a vacant lot behind the Emporium, and a canvas awning had been put up over two or three dozen bare tables on the grass. Several employees of the "store"--extra hands, perhaps--were kept frantically busy ladling out from huge freezers into earthenware saucers big slabs of frozen custard. All the gallant young beaux of the neighbourhood "treated" the girls they wished to favour, and spent ten cents a saucer for the "ice cream," with a big sugared "cooky" thrown in. The great Whit himself invited me to sit down with him, so Mr. Brett who had been coming up to ask Patty and me both, perhaps, whisked Patty away, leaving me to Mr. Walker. "Now, I'll tell you that favour I want," said he. "I hope you won't think I'm presuming too much on a short acquaintance, but it's a mighty important thing for me. It's about that little gal over there." "Patty?" I asked. He nodded. "Nobody else. There _ain't_ anybody else, so far as I'm concerned; meaning no disrespect to you, Princess. My old friend the Honourable says she just worships you, and would lie down and let you walk over her if you wanted." "I didn't know," I said. "Well, it's gospel truth, I guess, and I don't blame her. If you----" "She has been _sweet_ to me," I interrupted. "Why, what do you think she did, when I mentioned that the huge bells on Mr. Jacobsen's cows kept me awake nights? You know how that one field of Mr. Jacobsen's, which he won't sell, comes into Mr. Trowbridge's farm, and he keeps his cows there to be disagreeable? Well, Patty got up in the night, and climbed on the fence and caught the cows by offering them salt. Then she held on by their ears, and tied rags over their bells--horrid, loud bells--so they could make no noise. Only fancy, and some of those cows are awfully fierce. The rags have stopped on ever since; that was the way I found out, for she didn't tell for days."