"Well, I going to say, I never make a practice of dunning gentlemen who stop with me, and——"
"Well, that's right, landlord, that's right, and you'll make friends, in the long run, by not doing so. When I get ready to quit a hotel for good, I've got sense enough to ask for my bill, and then settle in full—and that is all anyone can ask for. How about the cream biscuit for supper, landlord?"
He said he guessed they were going to have some; and then asked how business was, anyway.
I told him our business had almost frightened us.
He said that was good.
Frank, who was sitting behind the stove listening to the conversation, said, as I passed by him a moment later: "I guess he'll lay still now."
About this time we received a letter from a sewing-machine agent at Hicksville, saying he would trade a machine for a County right. We left forthwith, without even bidding the landlord good-bye.
It took us four days to trade for the machine, and money enough to pay our expenses for that time.
We shipped the machine to Napoleon, and returned there ourselves on the first train. When we entered the hotel, we both rushed for the proprietor, saying, as we grasped his hands: