“He was agent for 'most everything I ever heard tell of a man bein' agent for,” said Miss Sally, “but I wish you'd tell me what they are.”
“Well, ma'm,” said the Colonel, “this is fire-extinguishers; patent chemical fire-extinguishers. I know because I recall seein' some once when I was down to Jefferson. They had 'em in a theater there. They put out fires with 'em.”
“Well!” exclaimed Miss Sally. “How do you ever suppose anybody would put out a fire with a thing like that?”
The Colonel turned the affair over and over.
“I didn't study that up,” he admitted, “but I guess if I take time I can find out how the thing works. They squirt out of this here tube somehow.”
He turned up the end of the tube and squinted into it. Again Eliph' Hewlitt was about to speak, but the attorney caught his eye and winked, and the little book agent held his tongue.
“Well, land's sakes!” exclaimed Miss Sally, “What am I goin' to do with four fire-extinguishers, I'd like to know?” She asked the question as if the Colonel had got her into this thing of the ownership of the fire-extinguishers, and she looked to him to take the responsibility. He was quite willing to accept it.
“I've got to think that over,” he said. “A feller can't decide right off hand what to do with four fire-extinguishers. It looks to me as if they was worth a lot more than the young feller owed you, Miss Sally. They ain't no doubt about Miss Sally havin' a right to 'em, is there, Mister Toole?”
“Not a bit of doubt!” exclaimed Toole cheerfully. “She has every right in the world. You've got a witness that they came out of that box, and she can sell, give, donate, assign, or bequeath them, for better or for worse.”
“Then that's all right,” said the Colonel, “an' I guess that's all we need you for.”