"Thank you, sir, but I must get back to Gridley at the earliest
possible moment."

"If you didn't want to hire the wagon," asked Mr. Titmouse testily,
"what was the use of taking up my time?"

"I do want to hire it," Dick admitted, "but since hearing your
price I have realized that I don't want the wagon half as much
as I did at the outset."

It was notable about Mr. Titmouse that he would gladly talk for
three hours in order to gain a dollar's advantage in any trade
in which he was interested. He was a small man, with small features
and very small eyes which, somehow, suggested gimlets. He bore
about with him always an air of injury, as though deeply sensitive
over the supposed fact that the whole world was concerned in getting
the better of him.

Though Mr. Titmouse had acquired, through sharp dealing, usury
and in many other ways a considerable sum of money and property
in the course of his life, yet he was not the man to part with
any of it needlessly.

The special wagon now resting in the wagon shed at his home place
in Tottenville had been designed by him at a time when people
all through the state had been much interested in outdoor life.
The Titmouse wagon had been built as the result of much thought
on the part of its designer. It certainly was a handy kind of
wagon for campers to use on the road. Mr. Titmouse had spent