"Thank ye, Zeb. An' ye'll be sure an' send that ad. to The Wire, won't ye? I'm hard up fer cash jist now. I'll pay ye out of what I make. We'll be pardners, ye see."
Zeb looked at his neighbor in astonishment.
"Well, if you haven't enough gall to start a vinegar factory then I'll be jiggered," he exclaimed. "Pardners, eh? An' I'm to run the hull durned shootin'-match!"
"Don't worry, Zeb," Abner replied, as he rase to his feet. "I'll do all the shootin' that's necessary. But, there, I must git home to dinner. Then I'll have to look after me laffin'-gas. S'long, Zeb, an' don't fergit that ad. Ten cents a line, remember, an' twenty cents fer a header."
CHAPTER XXVI
HEART TROUBLE
When the advertisement appeared in The Live Wire the next day it did not attract much attention. People who read it laughed, called Abner a fool, and then forgot all about it. Most likely it would have ended at that if the assistant editor of the paper had not seized upon it for a special editorial the following morning. He was anxious to hit back at the man who had produced such havoc in the office and given him so much extra work to do. Since the editor in chief had been unable to attend to his duties he had been called upon to do the work of two men, and this was all due to Abner Andrews, who was now posing as a specialist on all kinds of diseases.
The article was a scathing one under the caption of
"A FOOL AND HIS TRICKS."
It ridiculed the idea of a man like Abner Andrews setting himself up as a specialist, and warned people to beware of his wiles. The advertisement proved most conclusively that the man was either a fool or a deep-dyed villain. He was a fool to make such a pretence at healing all kinds of diseases. If not a fool, he was pretending to be one. The article then told of the serious charge which was hanging over the farmer, and this advertisement of his might be a ruse to make people think that he was not responsible for his actions, and thus act as a blind to his real villainous character. It closed with a second warning to all, and strongly suggested that the law should step in and prohibit the man from such actions.