“Come in,” says he, “come in. I was just enjoyin’ an hour or two with Napoleon myself. Mighty glad to learn somebody else in this town ’s int’rested in him. Was jest pastin’ on paper a few new pictures I found of the emperor.... Come in.”
We went in. You never saw such a looking office. Every inch of the walls was covered with pictures of Napoleon. There was hundreds of them. Napoleon was there afoot and ahorseback. He was there fighting battles and sitting in chairs and talking to men and holding his hands behind his back, and ’most every way you ever heard of except flying in an airplane. He’d have been doing that, only airplanes weren’t invented when Napoleon was doing his best fighting around Europe.
We sat down and Mr. Wade began talking about Napoleon and his horse. It was mighty interesting, and Catty and I listened for an hour till Mr. Wade had run down.
“Much obleeged,” says I. “I feel better now. Kin we come in again and talk about the emperor?”
“Any time, any time,” says he.
“By the way,” says I, “who owns that little store around the corner?”
“Tom Barnes,” says he.
“Know any other store in town that kin be rented?” says Catty.
“There hain’t another place,” says Mr. Wade.
“What’s the rent of that one?”