“See here,” he cried, “what has got into you anyway? Ef you knows anything about this here Lord Desmon, Reginal’ Deeverox, Alice Fairfax business, out with it, I sais. ’Hen you hears a piece o’ news ye jest set an’ smiles all over it to yourself like ez tho’ you was tormentin’ us. Ez ef we cared! Let anybody else hev a bit o’ news tho’ an’ you don’t give ’em no rest tell you’ve wormed it out of ’em--not tell you’ve wormed it all out of ’em.” “Now see here,” was the spirited answer, “it ain’t jest that I should be accused this ’ay. _The Home an’ Fireplace_ magazine was layin’ ’round the counter a whole week afore I even looked at it. I s’posed you’d all ben readin’ it. That’s why I thot ye might help me out.” “Shucks! So all this here is nothin’ but somethin’ you’ve been readin’ in the paper,” the Teacher sneered. “Exact. An’ ef you’d read the same piecet I guess you’d ben worrit, too.” “Reginal’ Deeverox--Deeverox.” The Patriarch was thinking hard and talking to himself. “I don’t mind that piecet, an’ I read most o’ that paper,” he said, looking up. “What page was it on?” “I don’t mind the number,” the Loafer answered, “but it begins on a page that hes a pictur o’ the house o’ Miss Annie Milliken in Tootlesbury, Massachusetts, an’ a long letter from her sayin’ how she hed been bed-rid fer thirty year tell a kind friend recommended Dr. Tarball’s Indian Wegetable Pacific.” “Now I do recklect somethin’ about that caset,” the Tinsmith interposed. “It was a fight over a bit o’ property an’ a girl.” “Exact,” said the Loafer. “Well, how d’ye know it’s so?” the Miller asked. “Because it’s in the paper is no sign it’s true.” “See here,” was the sharp reply, “do you s’pose ’hen they is so much in this world that’s true the editor o’ _The Home an’ Fireplace_ ’ud go to the trouble o’ makin’ up lies to print? Why, it wouldn’t pay.” The Miller was about to argue against this proposition, but the Patriarch leaned over and laid a hand on his knee, checking him. “Jest wait tell we find out who got the property,” the old man said. “An’ the girl,” cried the Tinsmith. “That’s jest what I’ve ben tryin’ to find out,” said the Loafer. Forthwith he plunged into the history of Reginald Devereux and Lord Desmond. “You see I found the paper on the counter yesterday ez I was waitin’ for the mail. I remember now ’most everything that was in that piecet, an’ most a mighty puzzlin’ piecet it was, too. It begin at a placet called Fairfax Castel, which was the home o’ Alice Fairfax, who the paper sayd was most tremendous good-lookin’, bein’ tall an’ willowy, with gold-colored hair an’ what it called _p-a-t-r-i-c-i-a-n_ cast o’ features. She was twenty year old an’ hed an income o’ ten thousand pound a year.” “Pound o’ what?” inquired the Patriarch. “The paper didn’t tell. It jest sayd pound.” “That’s the way with them editors,” cried the old man. “They allus forgits important points. They expects a man to know everything.”