"'No, ma'am,' says Silas, like the edge o' something, 'I don't wonder at your sayin' _anything_ to anybody.' "'I've got more to say,' I says, dry. 'I've only give you a sample. An' the place I'm goin' to say it is _The Friendship Village Evening Daily_, _Extra_, to-night, in a descriptive write-up of you and your store. I thought it might interest you to know.' "'It's libel--it's libel!' says Silas, arms waving. "'All right,' says I, liberating a fly accidentally caught on a date. 'Who you going to sue? Your wife, that's the editor? And everybody else's wife, that's doing the same thing to every behind-the-times dealer in town?' "Silas hung on to that straw. "'Be they doin' it to the others, too?' he asks. "Then I told him. "'Yes,' I says, 'Silas, only--they ain't goin' to start writing up the descriptions till noon. And if you--and they all--want to clean up the temples where you do business and make them fit for the Lord to look down on and a human being to come into, you've got your chance. And seeing your boy is gone to-day, if you'll do it, I'll stay and help you with it--and mebbe make room for some of the main points in your career as well,' says I, sly. "Silas looked out the door, his arms folded and his beard almost pointing up, he'd made his chin so firm. And just in that minute when I was feeling that all the law and the prophets, and the health of Friendship Village, and the life of people not born, was hanging around that man's neck--or the principle of them, anyway--Silas's eye and mine fell on a strange sight. Across the street, from out Joe Betts's meat market come Joe Betts, and behind him his boy. And Joe begun pointing, and the boy begun taking down quarters of beef hung over the sidewalk. Joe pointed consid'able. And then he clim' up on his meat wagon that stood by the door, and out of the shop I see Mis' Mayor Uppers come, looking ready to drop. And she clim' up to the seat beside him--he reaching down real gentlemanly to help her up. And he headed his horse around on what I guessed was a bee-line for the slaughterhouse. "Well, sir, at that, Silas Sykes put his hands on his knees and bent over and begun laughing. And he laughed like I ain't seen him since he's got old and begun to believe that life ain't cut after his own plan that he made. And I laughed a little, too, out of sheer being glad that a laugh can settle so many things right in the world. And when he sobered down a little, I says gentle:-- "'Silas, I'll throw out the dates and the dusty lettuce. And we'll hev it done in no time. I'll be glad to get an early start on the write-up. I don't compose very ready,' I told him.