“I’ll have them sent to the----Ugh!”

It was most astounding! The magic purse, quiescent during the deal, was now catching at his breath like an ice-water douche over the heart. Had it gone back on the bargain? Must he give up those chaste yet sprightly socks? Not without a struggle.

“Could you deliver them this afternoon?”

“We could if it isn’t too far.”

“Then have them sent to----Oh, Lord! No use!”

“Are you ill, sir?” asked the floorwalker, approaching anxiously.

Some unknown incitement forced a question to E. Van Tenner’s lips: “See here, does it cost you anything to deliver goods?”

“Certainly. In time and labor from twelve cents per package upward.”

So that was it! The magic was working beyond the limits of his own exchequer. Obviously it didn’t propose to sit by and watch him waste anybody’s money, even a store’s.

“I’ll take them with me,” said he. “Thank you, sir,” said the floorman.

As he departed with his purchase, E. Van Tenner felt a sensation as if a very soft and satisfied kitten were purring against his chest. “All right,” said he, speaking down his shirt front; “but don’t you get too dictatorial.” Business took up the rest of the afternoon; business in which the purse played an honorable and unprotesting part, though its course at one point called for a taxi expenditure of something more than two dollars. That, however, was to save necessary time. E. Van Tenner was relieved to find the magic receptacle so reasonable. He began to feel that he could live on terms of amity and confidence with it indefinitely. But when he came to pay the chauffeur, the wallet produced the exact amount with a precision that he could not but feel to be significant. In vain did he search for a tip.

“What’s the good?” demanded his mentor. “What’s the good of making a present to a man in whom you have no possible interest and who hasn’t done anything that he isn’t paid to do by his employer?”

“Not the slightest,” admitted E. Van Tenner in the face of the disgusted taxi man; and even added cheerfully: “That’s the precise amount, I believe.”

So swiftly and blithely does one become hardened to impotent scorn! Thus was twenty-five 

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