“On account of the brass lamp!” blubbered Tommy. A bob and a bow and a scrape! “I done fierce bad spending our savings that was for the brass lamp, and I couldn’t go find you where you was hid till I had that here, in this new home, for you to see, and be complete, and then you’d know I was sorry and it would prove I was going to do right. But it wasn’t tricks, Clara! Honest, it wasn’t tricks! Me standing on the other side of the street, and looking in the store window at you, and no overcoat, because I needed every cent to show I was going to do right. And you look at the mirror. I say, ‘Clara likes that mirror. Then Clara must have that!’ Me standing with my toes all pinched up, as my shoes is bad, and you looking at them red portcheers. Then Clara must have red portcheers! Me jumping up and down, like I’m froze, but standing there every Saturday night to see what Clara likes and Clara’s going to have that!” Bobbing, bowing, and scraping toward the hall, from Tommy; from Clara, rather a look of resentment toward the hall. A final tap on shoulder blades and: “Why, come in and see where we’re going to start up again!” “Ain’t it strange!” said calm, stolid Clara. “He found me, after all!” And from all four of them, and all four meaning every word: “In all the world, there ain’t nobody like your own! If it ain’t but big enough to hold a trunk, there’s no place like your own!” “And,” said supremely happy Tommy and Clara, “now we’ll celebrate!” [Illustration] [Illustration: _Will It Keep Them Off?_ _Carter, in New York American_] _The Money Power_ “All things come to him that waits.” Fifteen or sixteen years ago, when the Farmers’ Alliance was flourishing throughout the West and South, it was a matter of common occurrence to hear some old horny-handed farmer, on a Saturday at the county seat, disputing with his neighbor about existing conditions. Almost invariably the Alliance man blamed the “money power” for causing things to go criss-cross. Occasionally the country merchant or small banker would butt into the discussion. “The money power,” he would say, with infinite scorn, “Humph! Why, you poor fool, there ain’t any such thing as ‘the money power.’ Might as well talk of the agricultural power, or the mercantile power. There are rich bankers and rich farmers and rich merchants—but that don’t make them a ‘power’ in the sense you use that term.”