efforts were futile. The gambling laws are rightfully stringent, but Lambs gambol, so why not Porcupines?

“’Tain’t no use o’ lyin’ about it,” said the postmaster, shifting his quid, “you’ve had it in fer us ever since Salina Ann lost you that there forty-three cents. It was a day for the mud-larks and was heavy goin’, and you should have known better than to bet on her, but you seemed to have a hunch. It’s a gent’s sport, partook of by gents, and you’d orter be able to take defeat like a gent, or else,” he added, with bitter emphasis, “git!”

Two days later, a boycott was proclaimed against me. I could buy nothing in the village except postage stamps, and I must either move or starve.

My heart was heavy, then I thought of my new possessions and the cloud lifted. My medical adviser had chased me out of town until September first, so I still had a month to live outdoors. I would go, I decided—and I would lose Jagg. I did not doubt his ability to get his living—he had got mine, whenever I had brought canned goods home.

I wrote out one morning: “Jagg, I am going to clean house,” and fed him the slip. An hour or so later he came to me and nodded intelligently, but I could see the lingering sadness upon his visage and, for the first time, it struck me that Jagg might once have been married.

Under this safe disguise, I packed my things and swept out the cabin with a broom and a pail of water. Jagg watched me intently, and I saw that I would have to deceive him if I escaped. I pondered long after I had resolved myself into a committee of ways and means, but my bright ideas were all packed away with moth balls on the high shelf of my mind until such time as I could get to my typewriter and begin anew the bombardment of the magazines.That night we sat in darkness, for Jagg had made a light luncheon of the only remaining candle, but I was patient and bided my time, knowing that on the morrow I would give him the last slip.

In the morning I began to scrub the cabin vigorously. When I went after another cake of soap, I saw that there was nothing left but a piece of the wrapper about the size of a curl paper, and, since I have the usual masculine aversion to curl papers and wrappers, I gave an exclamation of horror.

Jagg’s guilty face betrayed him, and I hastened to my table. “If you ate that soap,” I wrote, “you will have to stay here while I go to town for more. If you ate it, nod, and if you are willing to stay, nod. It will be 

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