An hour later McNutt was on his mission, the three copies, which had been carefully dusted, reclining on the buggy seat beside him. Arrived at the Wegg farm, he drove up to the stile and alighted.
Louise was reading in the hammock, and merely glanced at the little man, who solemnly stumped around to the back door with the three red volumes tucked underneath his arm. He had brought them all along to make his errand "look like business."
"Where's the nabob?" he asked blind Nora.
"What's that, Mr. McNutt?" she inquired, as if puzzled. She knew his voice, as she did that of nearly everyone with whom she had ever been brought in contact.
"Why, the nabob; the boss; Mr. Merrick."
"Oh. He's in the barn with Tom, I guess."
McNutt entered the barn. Uncle John was seated upon an overturned pail watching Old Hucks oil Joe's harness. The agent approached him with a deferential bow.
"Sir," said he, "you'll 'scuse my comin' agin so soon to be a-botherin'; but I hev here three copies of Radford's famis wucks on the Lives o' the Saints, in a edishun dee looks——"
"A what?"
"A edishun dee looks, which means extry fine. It's a great book an' they's all out'n print 'cept these three, which I hain't no doubt many folks would be glad to give their weight in gold fer, an' some over."