Flynn began hurriedly finishing off Rosenstein, talking with no less
eagerness as he did so. "Well, it's Bonaflora mining-stock, ef you
want to know," he said, importantly.

"Where is it?" asked the postmaster, with a peculiar smile.

"Out West somewhere. It ain't but fifty cents a share, an' it's goin'
up like a skyrocket, an' there's others. There's a new railroad out
there, an' other mines, an' a new invention for makin' fuel out of
coal-dust, an' some other things."

"Is Captain Carroll the president of them?" asked the small man, with
an impressed air. He was very young, and eager-looking, and very
shabby. He grubbed on a tiny ancestral farm, for a living for himself
and wife and four children, young as he was. He had never had enough
to eat, at least of proper food. He did not come to the "Tonsorial
Parlor" to be shaved, for he hacked away at his innocent cheeks at
home with his deceased father's old razor, but he loved a little
gossip. In fact, John Flynn's barber-shop was his one dissipation.
Sometimes he looked longingly at a beer-saloon, but he had no money,
unless he starved Minna and the children, and for that he was too
good and too timid. His Minna was a stout German girl, twice his
size, and she ruled him with a rod of iron. She did not approve of
the barber-shop, and so the pleasure had something of the zest of a
forbidden one.

Every Sunday he was at his wit's end, which was easily reached, to
invent a suitable excuse for his absence. To-day it had been to see
if Mrs. Amidon did not want to buy some apples. Some of their last