His eyes twinkled with appreciative humor as he thanked me, and a sudden remorse seized me for taking advantage of his insistent belief that I was Peter Waydean. I might have yielded to my inclination to confess, had not Marion's cough given place to a series of energetic movements which I interpreted as a threat that she was preparing to enter the room to expose my duplicity. As a usual thing I am easily intimidated, but sometimes when I get beyond my depth I become bold, defiant, reckless. I had, after all, done no wrong; I had merely accepted a situation that had been forced upon me. My wife, on the contrary, had behaved with heartless indifference. After training me to depend upon her judgment, after teaching me to obey the dictates of her conscience, she had, without a word of warning, sympathy or apology, left me to wrestle alone with a momentous question; left me to be tossed about like a tailless kite or a rudderless boat. Well, it was my plain duty to teach her a lesson, and I saw the way to point a pretty moral and at the same time settle my doubts as to the wisdom of allowing Peter to work my land on shares. Marion had refused her opinion on this matter; she might now listen while I appealed to a stranger. "Mr. Hughes," I said hurriedly, as he picked up his hat, "sit down for five minutes more--I want to ask your advice." He did so, and briefly,--very briefly, for the sounds indicated that Marion was desperately sponging her skirt on the dining-room table,--I sketched a proposition similar to Peter's. "Now," I concluded, "do you consider that a fair arrangement for the city man as well as for the farmer?" "A fair arrangement!" he exclaimed. "Where is the city man's share?" "Wouldn't it be in the money he wouldn't spend by not working the land himself?" I asked earnestly. He laughed in joyous abandonment. "Really, Mr. Waydean," he gasped, "you have an extraordinary mind. But it doesn't pay to juggle with one's conscience, even in the case of a city man--it would be downright extortion." Again I was moved by his geniality to confess that I was not the man I seemed; again was this virtuous resolve crushed. Before I could speak, he went on: "You wouldn't have asked me this if your conscience hadn't troubled you. Three hundred dollars bonus for the farmer--and _all_ the produce!" Again his smile broke out afresh as he looked at me in mild reproof. "Oh, I know what you're thinking. I, too, thought at one time that amateur farmers were designed by Providence to add to the prosperity and entertainment of legitimate cultivators of the soil, but--oh, dear me!--three hun--ho, ho, ho!--Why, you'd kill your goose." "Goose!" I cried fiercely. "Do you mean to call me a goose?" "No, no,--I was going to say you'd kill your goose----"