your bill to me and it will receive prompt attention_.

After several days this reply came:

_Mister Doyle you must be crazy as a loon. Send me fifty cold dollars as
an evvidence of good fayth and I wull see what can be done. Old Hucks is
livin on the place yit do you want him to git out or what? Yours fer a
square deal Marshall McMahon McNutt_.

"John," said the Major, exhibiting this letter, "you're on the wrong
tack. The man is justified in thinking we're crazy. Give up this idea
and think of something else to bother me."

But the new proprietor of the Wegg farm was obdurate. During the past
week he had indulged in sundry sly purchases, which had been shipped, in
his name to Chazy Junction, the nearest railway station to Millville.
Therefore, the "die had been cast," as far as Mr. Merrick was concerned,
for the purchases were by this time at the farm, awaiting him, and he
could not back out without sacrificing them. They included a set of
gardening tools, several hammocks, croquet and tennis sets, and a
remarkable collection of fishing tackle, which the sporting-goods man
had declared fitted to catch anything that swam, from a whale to a
minnow. Also, Uncle John decided to dress the part of a rural gentleman,
and ordered his tailor to prepare a corduroy fishing costume, a suit of
white flannel, one of khaki, and some old-fashioned blue jean overalls,
with apron front, which, when made to order by the obliging tailor, cost
about eighteen dollars a suit. To forego the farm meant to forego all
these luxuries, and Mr. Merrick was unequal to the sacrifice. Why, only
that same morning he had bought a charming cottage piano and shipped it
to the Junction for Patsy's use. That seemed to settle the matter