"How many colonies did you ask me to buy, Bob?" asked his uncle laughing.
"Five or six," said Bob.
"Well, I got them for you all right, but there's not five or six. They had twenty-two and they wouldn't sell one without selling all. So I bought them all for $50.00, which you see is less than you said you were willing to pay for six and they're going to deliver them, too, in modern sectional hives. They are three-banded Italian, whatever that means, with one or two exceptions they say the colonies are in a good healthy condition."
"That's fine," said Bob, so excited he was scarcely able to eat his supper. "What else did you buy?"
"Well, Bob, if I go to the poorhouse, there'll be no one to blame for it but you and John White."
"Why, how's that?" asked Bob's grandfather, looking up quickly.
"Well, it was like this: when he got me down there he not only persuaded me to buy the ten young Holstein cows and a bull, but he induced me to buy five Berkshire brood sows and two four-year-old Belgian mares. He wanted me to take a flock of Southdown Ewes and a ram, but I didn't buy them—there's no money in keeping a few sheep."
"Were they nice-looking sheep, Joe?" asked his father, who was very fond of sheep.
"The finest I ever saw, father, but I didn't want to go so far in debt."
"Then who bid them in, Joe?" asked his father.