All the afternoon he sat in the rear of his little coffin shop, floundering again and again through the confusing phrases of a legal document spread out before him. It notified him of the death of one Mortimer Napoleon Bennet, a travelling showman, who had left him heir to possessions valued at several thousands of dollars.

So bewildering was the unexpected news and the legal terms in which it was conveyed, that it was some time before Wexley's slow brain grasped the fact that the deceased was not a stranger, but only red-headed "Pole" Bennet, an old play-fellow, who had run away from home over thirty years before. Next, his stumpy forefinger guided his spectacles twice through the entire document before he realized that he was now the owner of all the ungodly goods and chattels enumerated therein.

"Lordy!" he groaned, as he checked off the various items. "Me, a deacon in the church, to be ownin' four gilded circus chariots and a steam calliope, to say nothin' of a trick elephant and a pair of dancin' cinnamon bears. It's downright scandalous! Pole always was a-gittin' me into hot water. Meant all right! Had a heart as big as a meetin' house, but he was at the bottom of every lickin' I ever got in my life. Mebbe not havin' any next of kin, he felt he sorter owed it to me to make me his heir."

Again his finger travelled slowly down the page to the clause in which three freaks connected with the side shows were especially commended to his care—an armless dwarf and the Wild Twins of Borneo. The lawyer's letter explained that they had long been pensioners upon the bounty of the deceased, and had the promise of the dying man that "Wex" would be good to them.

"Bug the luck!" groaned the undertaker, as the full meaning of this clause also dawned upon him. "Guardeen to an armless dwarf and two wild twins of Borneo! Pole oughtn't to 'a' done me that way. I'll be the laughing stock of the town, and that'll ruin my chances for ever with Sade."

Glowering over his spectacles, he leaned through the open window and spat testily out into the cluttered back yard. It was some time before he drew in his shoulders. When a diffident old bachelor has obstinately courted a girl for a decade, he naturally falls into the habit of determining every act of his life by the effect it will have upon her.

In this case he could not imagine what effect his queer legacy would have upon Sade Cooper, the comely, capable spinster of his dreams. She had made up her mind to marry Wexley Snathers some day, for in the stout, sandy-whiskered little undertaker she recognized an honest soul of rare worth. On the occasion of his latest proposal, several weeks before, she had given him the reason for her repeated refusals:—

"I never could get along with your ma, Wexley. If you had enough to keep me in one house and old Mis' Snathers in another, I might think of marrying you. But she'd try to get me under her thumb, same as she's always held you, and your pa before you, and you know I never could stand that, so you might as well save your breath on that question."

Wexley realized the hopelessness of his suit, if that was what stood in the way, and since Sade's outspoken confession he had almost prayed for an epidemic to smite the healthy little village, that the undertaking business might prove more lucrative.

Now, as he sat with his head out of the window, breathing in the sweetness of an old plum tree in bloom by the pump, he began to wonder if this unexpected legacy would not solve all his difficulties. If the circus could be made the stepping-stone for his desires without making him ridiculous, or offending Sade's Puritan conscience, then Pole would indeed have proved himself, for once, the greatest of benefactors.