He made a rapid accounting, overlooking the table, his eyes lighting on the several fragments: "Beer, ten cents; steak, ten; peaches, five; celery, three; eggs on toast, ten; one bo-ket, four." Then he paused a moment, as if he wanted to be entirely fair and square, and said, "Forty-two cents." [Illustration: "FORTY-TWO CENTS"] When I reached the hotel, a man who said he was the proprietor came to my room. He was a sad man with tears in his voice. "You're comin' to supper, ain't ye? It'll be the last time. It's a kind o' mournful occasion, but I like to have ye." It was now my turn. "No, I'm not coming to supper. You drove me out of here half starving into the street two hours ago. I couldn't get anything to eat at Nichols, and so I had to go down the hill to a place near the saw-mill, where I got the most infernal"---- He stopped me with a look of real anxiety. "Not the five-meals-for-a-dollar place?" "Yes." "And you swallowed it?" "Certainly--poached eggs, peaches, and a lot of things." "No," he said reflectively, looking at me curiously. "_You_ don't want no supper--prob'bility is you won't want no breakfast, either. You'd better eaten the saw-mill--it would 'er set lighter. If I'd known who you were I'd tried"---- "But I told the clerk," I broke in. "What clerk?" he interrupted in an astonished tone. "Why, the clerk at the desk, where I registered--that long-necked crane with red eyes." "He ain't no clerk; we ain't had one for a week. Don't you know what's goin' on? Ain't you read the bills? Step out into the hall--there's one posted up right in front of you. 'Sheriff's sale; all the stock and fixtures of the Norrington Arms to be sold on Wednesday morning'--that's to-morrow--'by order of the Court.' You can read the rest yourself; print's too fine for me. That fellow you call a crane is a deputy sheriff. He's takin' charge, while we eat up what's in the house."