“Well,” said the man, “that young fellow who is coming yonder can tell you a good deal more about it than I can. He was engaged to be married when the Strike came on, and what did his best girl do but drop her weddin’-dress, half finished as if it were a hot pertater, and leave him like a shot. Jehoshaphat! to think that Solomon, the wisest man that ever lived, should ask thousands of years ago, if ‘a bride could forget her attire,’ and then to have one up and do it here in this nineteenth century. I’ll introduce you to the young chap. He’s naturally desperately anxious to get things fixed up, and he knows just what the women want.” The young man referred to, who had now come up to where we stood, was a broad-shouldered, good-looking young fellow who bore a serious, introspective air, together with one of brave manliness. My chance acquaintance introduced the young man to me as Mr. Justin Lister, and I offered my name in return--Rodney Carford. I was impatient to begin serious conversation with Mr. Lister, but our loquacious introducer stopped long enough to say, as he pointed at the advertisements, in the druggist’s window, of oil for burns, which were named after all the saints in the calendar: “This man who runs this drug store’s gettin’ ready to retire from business. Got rich sellin’ arnica and St. Huldy’s oil since the strike began. You see men can’t monkey around stoves and flat-irons and such things in a kitchen without knockin’ the skin off from their knuckles and burnin’ their fingers. They ain’t got the patience of women, if they had the skill. I’m thinking of buyin’ this man out if the Strike continers, and as I know two or three other men who’ve got their eyes on the place, I’ll have to leave you to close up the deal.” And he disappeared into the drug store. [Illustration] [Illustration] CHAPTER III. I turned eagerly toward Mr. Justin Lister, as soon as our companion had left us. He was about my age, and there was a certain sympathetic friendliness in the glance of his frank blue eye that established a kind of magnetic rapport between us at once. It was therefore an easy matter for me to ask the privilege of accompanying him wherever he was going in order that I might have an opportunity to talk with him. He assented to my request readily and added that he was going to his own house, and if I could put up with such awkward hospitality as a man unassisted by woman could give, he would be pleased to entertain me. I accepted his offer with pleasure, and as we walked leisurely along the well-paved and shaded street, I lost no time in begging him to acquaint me with the beginning of this astounding Woman’s Strike. “How did it come about?”