CHAPTER XXXIV.
"Where you ben ?" asked Mrs.Bixbee of her brother as the three sat at the one o'clock dinner.

"I see you drivin' off somewheres." "Ben up the Lake Road to 'Lizer Howe's," replied David.

"He's got a hoss 't I've some notion o' buyin'." "Ain't the' week-days enough," she asked, "to do your horse-tradin' in 'ithout breakin' the Sabbath ?" David threw back his head and lowered a stalk of the last asparagus of the year into his mouth.
"Some o' the best deals I ever made," he said, "was made on a Sunday.
Hain't you never heard the sayin', 'The better the day, the better the deal' ?" "Wa'al," declared Mrs.Bixbee, "the' can't be no blessin' on money that's made in that way, an' you'd be better off without it." "I dunno," remarked her brother, "but Deakin Perkins might ask a blessin' on a hoss trade, but I never heard of it's bein' done, an' I don't know jest how the deakin 'd put it; it'd be two fer the deakin an' one fer the other feller, though, somehow, you c'n bet." "Humph!" she ejaculated.

"I guess nobody ever did; an' I sh'd think you had money enough an' horses enough an' time enough to keep out o' that bus'nis on Sunday, anyhow." "Wa'al, wa'al," said David, "mebbe I'll swear off before long, an' anyway the' wa'n't no blessin' needed on this trade, fer if you'll ask 'Lizer he'll tell ye the' wa'n't none made.

'Lizer 's o' your way o' thinkin' on the subjict." "That's to his credit, anyway," she asserted.
"Jes' so," observed her brother; "I've gen'ally noticed that folks who was of your way o' thinkin' never made no mistakes, an' 'Lizer 's a very consistent believer;" whereupon he laughed in a way to arouse both Mrs.
Bixbee's curiosity and suspicion.
"I don't see anythin' in that to laugh at," she declared.
"He, he, he, he!" chuckled David.
"Wa'al, you may 's well tell it one time 's another.