of his wrote a rural play called Sweet Peas--"Great title, don't you think?" he asked--and he put up all the money. It would have been a hit, he said, but the kid in the play--the one that unites its parents in the last act just before he dies of tuberculosis--the kid took the mumps and looked as if, instead of fading away, he was going to blow up. Everybody was so afraid of him that they let him die alone for three nights in the middle of the stage. Then the leading woman took the mumps, and the sheriff took everything else.

"You city folks seem to know so much," I said, "and yet you bring a country play to the country! Why don't you bring out a play with women in low-necked gowns, and champagne suppers, and a scandal or two? They packed Pike's Opera-House three years ago with a play called Why Women Sin."

Well, of course, the thing failed, and he lost every dollar he'd put into it, which was all he had, including what he had in his pockets. "They seized my trunks," he explained, "and I sold my fur-lined overcoat for eight dollars, which took one of the girls back home. It's hard for the women. A fellow can always get some sort of a job--I was coming up here to see if they needed an extra clerk or a waiter, or chauffeur, or anything that meant a roof and something to eat--but I suppose they don't need a jack-of-all-trades."

"No," I answered, "but I'll tell you what I think they're going to need. And that's an owner!"

**CHAPTER VI: THE CONSPIRACY**

I'm not making any excuses. I did it for the best. In any sort of crisis there are always folks who stand around and wring their hands and say, "What shall we do?" And then if it's a fire and somebody has had enough sense to send for the engines, they say: "Just look at what the water did!" Although as far as I can see I'm the only one that suffered any damage.

If Mr. Thoburn had not been there, sitting by to see the old sanatorium die so it could sprout wings and fly as a summer hotel, I'd never have thought of it. But I was in despair.

I got up and opened the door, but the Snow came in in a cloud, and the path was half a foot deep again. It shows on what little threads big things hang, for when I saw the storm I gave up the idea of bringing Mr. Sam down to see the young man, and the breath of fresh air in my face brought me to my senses.

But the angel of providence appeared in the shape of Mike, the bath man, coming down through the snow in a tearing 

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