He handles grain and flour way up in Minnesota, and back as far as Ohio, and west to California.

But what he actually owns,--that is, whether he rents the mills or, to be exact, steals them,--I haven't any idea--not the slightest notion in the world, in point of fact--not the slightest notion." As they passed through Main Street it was deserted, save in the billiard halls, and as no one seemed inclined to talk, the colonel took up the subject of Barclay: "Say we call it five million--five million in round numbers; that's a good deal of money for a man to have and haggle a month over seventy-five dollars the way he did with me when he sold me his share of College Heights.

But," added the colonel, "I suppose if I had that much I'd value it more." The women were thinking of other things, and the colonel addressed the night: "Man gets an appetite for money just as he does for liquor--just like the love for whiskey, I may say." He shook his sides as he meditated aloud: "But as for me--I guess I've got so I can take it or let it alone.

Eh, ma ?" "I didn't catch what you were saying, pa," answered his wife.

"I was just thinking whether we had potatoes enough to make hash for breakfast; have we, Molly ?" As the women were discussing the breakfast, two men came out of a cross street, and the colonel, who was slightly in advance of his women, hailed the men with, "Hello there, Bob--you and Jake out here carrying on your illicit friendship in the dark ?" The men and the Culpeppers stopped for a moment at the corner.