give Ted and Nancy a happy vacation.

When her worry was becoming so keen that she felt she must ask Ruth to go home with her, there pushed into the crowd an old man in a broad-brimmed straw hat, although the sun was well out of all mischief.

“Look!” whispered Ruth. “There’s Mr. Townsend! And that’s Mr. Sanders—with him!”

Just then the two men stepped over to the little mound where the girls were. They did not see the girls, but Mr. Sanders drew Mr. Townsend to a sudden stop in a space directly in front of Nancy and Ruth.

“I tell you, Sanders,” Mr. Townsend said, in a voice not at all suitable for his surroundings, “the whole town is talkin’. They say all kinds of things and you had better out with the whole thing.”

Mr. Sanders laughed as if he enjoyed the joke.

“Keep cool, keep cool, friend,” he said.

But Mr. Townsend was by no means keeping cool, and he said so, sharply.

“And I’ve left my home, got my sister on her ear, made a poor man’s name for myself—”

Mr. Sanders grasped his arm with a sudden movement, perfectly evident to the astounded girls.

“When you are tired of your bargain, Elmer Townsend,” he said, “just let me know.”

CHAPTER VII THE SPECIAL SALE

They had worked like slaves, according to Nancy, while Ted insisted he was too tired even to eat.

“But it’s going to be a grand success,” promised Ruth. “I can hardly wait until morning for the doors to open.”

“Sale now going on!” chanted Isabel, a friend of Ruth’s, who had come in to help. “Ladies and gentlemen! Step this way for your fish lines!” she called out, testing the possibilities of the next day’s special sale. “Here’s where you get your fish-hooks that never slip, and your tackle that always tacks, and as for sinkers—”

“You’ll sink, first shot,” Ruth interrupted, from her perch on the stepladder, where she was waving a Japanese lantern as if that flimsy article had anything to do with fishing tackle.

“Oh say! Look here! Who took my best reel?” cried Ted. “I want that for myself. It was in a 

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