week's salary that she could make Bernhardt feel like she was out in the storm we had day before yesterday. Slim called them the Roast-Beef Sisters, Rare and Well-done. In a minute the castors on Buck's neck began to turn. Slim put us wise with a wink so we lit the fire and began to cook it up. Buck's heart was warming for the birds in the gilded cage. "The real Kibo!" said Slim; "it's a plain case of Appomattox; the war is over and they are yours, Buck!" Buck turned a few more volts into his twinkling lamps. "Lower your mainsail, Buck, and drop alongside; you've made the landing," suggested Nick. Buck began to feel his necktie and play patty-cake with the little bald spot on the top of his head."Stop the hansom and get out; you're at your corner," said Tod. The Sweet Dreams across the way were giving Buck the glorious eye-roll and he felt that dinner was ready. "Hang up your hat, Buck, and gather the myrtle with Mary!" I chipped in. Then Buck bounced over and began to show Millie and Tillie what a handsome brute he was at close quarters. He sat on the arm of the seat and steamed up. In less than a minute he crowded the information on them that he was a millionaire who had escaped from Los Angeles, Cal., and he was just going to put them both in grand opera when his three-year-old toddled down the aisle and grabbed him by the coat tail: "Papa! Mama wants 'oo to det my bottle of milk!" "Stung!" shrieked Slim. "Back to the nursery!" howled Tod, and then as Buck crawled away to home and mother we let out a yell that caused the conductor to think the train had struck a Wild West show. During the rest of the trip Buck was nailed to his seat. Every time he tried to use the elastic in his neck the wife would burn him with a hard, cold glitter. The Roast-Beef Sisters seemed to be all carved up about something or other. We were back to the shop selling things again when Sledgeheimer fluttered down among us. The boys call him putty because he's the next thing to a pane. He's such a stingy loosener that he looks at you with one eye so's not to waste the other. If you ask Sledgeheimer what time it is he takes off four minutes as his commission for telling you. "Barnes," said Sledgeheimer, "do you smoke?" It was a knock-out. In the annals of the road no one could look back to the proud day when Sledgeheimer had coughed. Once, so the legend runs, he gave a porter a nickel, but it was afterwards discovered that Sledgeheimer was asleep and not responsible at the time, so the porter gave it back. Sledgeheimer tried to collect three cents interest for the time the porter kept the nickel, and the conductor had to punch his mileage and his nose before he'd let go. And now Sledgeheimer had asked Barnes if he smoked. Slim was pale but game. "Sometimes!" he answered. "Do 

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