the great Sears-Roebuck Semiannual Mail-Order Catalogue. Its happy
possessor need but cross the talisman with the ready magic of a postal
money order and the swift genii of transportation would attend, servile
to his call, to deliver the commanded treasures at his very door.

But the young reader was not purposefully shopping in this vast
market-place of print. Rather he was adventuring idly, indulging the
amateur spirit, playing a game of hit-or-miss, seeking oracles in those
teeming pages. Therefore he did not turn to the pink insert, embodying
the alphabetical catalogue (Abdominal Bands to Zither Strings), but
opened at random.

"Supertoned Banjos," he read, beginning at the heading; and, running his
eye down the different varieties, paused at "Pride of the Plantation, a
full-sized, well-made, snappy-toned instrument at a very moderate price.
12 T 4031/4."

The explorer shook his head. Abovestairs rested a guitar (the Pearletta,
12 S 206, price $7.95) which he had purchased at the instance of Messrs.
Sears-Roebuck's insinuating representation as set forth in catalogue
item 12 S 01942, "Self-mastery of the Guitar in One Book, with All
Chords, Also Popular Solos That Can Be Played Almost at Sight." The
nineteen-cent instruction-book had gone into the fire after three days
of unequal combat between it and its owner, and the latter had
subsequently learned something of the guitar (and more of life) from a
Mexican-American girl with lazy eyes and the soul of a capricious and
self-indulged kitten, who had come uninvited to Manzanita to visit an
aunt, deceased six months previously. With a mild pang of memory for
those dreamy, music-filled nights on the desert, the youth decided
against further experiments in stringed orchestration.