all the money I brought, I was smilingly assured by innumerable female Tootses that "it was of no consequence"; but I found there were consequences when I came to settle afterward for half the things at the fair, because I was too bashful to say No, boldly.

Fred Hencoop auctioned off the remaining[45] articles after eleven o'clock. Every time he put up something utterly unsalable, he would look over at me, nod, and say: "Thank you, John; did you say fifty cents?" or "Did I hear you say a dollar? A dollar—dollar—going, gone to our friend and patron, John Flutter, Jr.," and some of the lady managers would "make a note of it," and I was too everlastingly embarrassed to deny it.

[45]

"John," said father, about four o'clock in the afternoon the day after the fair—"John, did you buy all these things?"—the front part of the store was piled and crammed with my unwilling purchases.

"Father, I don't know whether I did or not."

"How much is the bill?"

"$98.17."

"How are you going to pay it?"

"I've got the hundred dollars in bank grandmother gave me when she died."

"Draw the money, pay your debts, and either get married at once and make these things useful, or we'll have a bonfire in the back yard."

"I guess we'd better have the bonfire, father. I don't care for any girl but Belle, and she won't have me."

"Won't have you! I'm worth as much as Squire Marigold any day."

"I know it, father; but I took her down to supper last night, and I was so confused, with all the married ladies looking on, I made a mess[46] of it. I put two teaspoonfuls of sugar in her oyster stew, salted her coffee, and insisted on her taking pickles with her ice-cream. She didn't mind that so much, but when I stuffed my saucer into my pocket, and conducted her into the coal-cellar instead of the hall, she got out of patience. Father, I think I'd better go to Arizona in the spring. I'm—"

[46]

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