"Oh bother the grammar, I'm telling you about Pliny Hastings. He came along, and says he, 'Halloo, Tode, here you are as large as life in business for yourself. You ought to have a sign,' says he. 'What's your establishment called?' And you may think I felt cheap as long as I lived at the Euclid house, to have no kind of a name for my place. I thought then I'd have a name and a sign before this time to-morrow. So when I went for my dinner I bought this pasteboard, and I been studying the thing out all this afternoon between the spells of arithmetic, and I've got it all fixed now, and I've got another idea come of that I never see how one thing starts another. There's going to come a piece of pasteboard off this end, 'cause you see it's too long, and I'm going to have a circle out of that." "A circle. What for?" "Oh you'll see when we get to it. But now don't you want to know what my sign is?" "I suppose I'll have to know if I'm to help you, whether I want to or not." "Well, I had to study on that for quite a spell. You see I want a name for my house, and then my own name right under it, 'cause I like to see a man stand by his business, name and all; and then I want every body to know I stand up for temperance. I thought of 'Cold Water House,' but then you see it _ain't_ a cold water house, cause coffee is my principal dish. Then I thought of 'Coffee House,' but there's a coffee house not more than two blocks away from my place, and they keep plenty of whisky there, and _that_ wouldn't do. And I thought and _thought_, and by and by it came to me. I wouldn't have no 'House' at all about it, 'cause after all is said and done it's just a _box_; and I concluded to have a out-and-out temperance sign. I'll print a great big NO, so big you can see it across the street, and then we'll make two great big black bottles, like they keep rum in, standing by the 'No.' And then, says _I_, everybody will know where to find _me_ on _that_ question." Even grave Winny laughed over this queer idea. "I can't make bottles any more than I can fly away," she said at last "And neither can you." "I shan't say that till I've tried it about a month, _anyhow_," Tode answered, positively. "I never _did_ like to give up a thing before I began it." The white cap frill nodded violently over this sentiment "That's the way to talk," said the little mother. "There's more giving up of good things before they're begun than there ever is afterward, I do believe."