“Don’t want a nice rat-trap, do ye, stranger?” inquired the passenger. “One which sets herself, works on scientific principles, allus ready, painted a nice green, wanted by every family, warranted to knock the socks off’n any other trap ever invented by mortal man?”
“No, sir; I want the money!” replied the clerk in emphatic tones.
“Oh, wall, I’ll pay; of course I will,” said the rat-trap man; “but that’s an awful figger for a ride to Orleans, and cash is cash these days.”
He counted out the fare in ragged shin-plasters, wound a shoe-string around his wallet and replaced it, and then unlocked one of the satchels and took out a wire rat-trap. Proceeding to the cabin, he looked the ground over, and then waltzing up to a young lady who sat on a sofa reading, he began—
“I take great pleasure in presenting to your attention the Eureky rat-trap, the best trap ever invented. It sets——”
“Sir!” she exclaimed, rising to her feet.
“Name’s Harrington Baker,” he went on, turning the trap around on his outstretched hand, “and I guarantee this trap to do more square killing among rats than——”
She gave him a look of scorn and contempt, and swept grandly away; and without being the least put out he walked over to a bald-headed man who had tilted his chair back and fallen asleep.
“Fellow-mortal, awakest and gaze upon the Eureky rat-trap,” said the stranger, as he laid his hand on the shiny pate of the sleeper.
“Wh—who—what!” exclaimed the Bald-head, opening his eyes and flinging his arms around.