"Still a-waitin', be ye?" he exclaimed peevishly. "Well, it's lucky you ain't been kept a-standin' there a whole sight longer--half the night, mebby! You would a-been, only for my havin' an orig'nal system for peddlin' them letters that's all my own. It's system does it--but it ain't right, just the same. The Gov'mint don't expect nobody to work more'n eight hours to a stretch, and look at me, two hours late and I ain't home yet! I'd complain, too--I'd complain to the authorities at Washington, only--only"--his thin, high-pitched voice dropped suddenly to a furtively conciliating whisper--"only a-course I don't want to make no trouble for the Judge." Denny Bolton cleared his throat and shuffled his feet uneasily, but this hint for haste was utterly wasted upon Old Jerry. The latter failed completely to note the strained intensity of the face that was upturned before him and went on grumbling as he leaned over to fumble in the box beneath the seat. And the tirade continued in an unbroken, half-muffled stream until he straightened laboriously again, the boy's usual weekly packet of papers and catalogues in one hand. "No," he emphasized deliberately, "I wouldn't really go so fur's that--I ain't figgerin' on makin' no complaint--not this time. I got too much regard for the Judge to try to get him into any hot water. But there wa'n't no real use nor reason in his postin' all them invitations to once. He could a-begun back a stretch and kinda run 'em in easy, a little to a time, instead of lumpin' 'em this way, and that would a-give me----" Young Denny reached out and took the bundle from the extended, unsteady old hand. His own hands were shaking a little as he broke the string and fluttered swiftly through the half dozen papers and pamphlets. Old Jerry never skipped a breath at the interruption. "But that finishes up the day--that's about the last of it." The thin voice became heavily tinged with pride. "There ain't nobody in the township but what's got his card to that barn-raising by now--delivered right on the nail! That's my system." And then, judiciously: "I guess it's a-goin' to be a real fancy affair, too, at that. Must be it'll cost him more'n a little mite before he gits done feedin' 'em. They was a powerful lot of them invitations." Slowly Denny Bolton's head lifted. He stood and stared into Old Jerry's peaked, wrinkled face as if he had only half heard the rambling complaint, a strange, bewildered light growing in his eyes. Then his gaze dropped once more, and a second time, far more slowly, his fingers went through the packet of advertisements. Old Jerry was leaning over to unwind the reins from the whipstock when the boy's hand reached out and stopped him. "Ain't there--wasn't there anything more for me--tonight?" Young Denny inquired gravely. Jerry paused impatiently. No other question ever caused him quite such keen irritation, for he felt that it was a slur at his reliability.