III


John K. Lummox lived for a week at the Turkey Buzzard Hotel
exclusively on doughnuts and innuendoes. He was informed by Mr.
Borem's clerk--whose place he was to fill--that he wouldn't be able
to stand it, and thus received the character of his employer from
his last employee.

"I suppose," said Dan'l Borem, chuckling, "that he said I was a old
skinflint, good only at a hoss trade, uneddicated, ignorant, and
unable to keep accounts, and an oppressor o' the widder and orphan.
Allowed that my cute sayin's was a kind o' ten-cent parody o' them
proverbs in Poor Richard's Almanack!"

"Omitting a few expletives, he certainly did," returned Lummox with
great delicacy.

"He allowed to me," said Dan'l thoughtfully, "that YOU was a poor
critter that hadn't a single reason to show for livin': that the
fool-killer had bin shadderin' you from your birth, and that you
hadn't paid a cent profit on your father's original investment in
ye, nor on the assessments he'd paid on ye ever since. He seems to
be a cute feller arter all, and I'm rather sorry he's leavin'."

"I am quite willing to abandon my position in his favor, now," said
Lummox with alacrity.

"No," said Dan'l, rubbing his chin argumentatively; "the only way
for us to do is to circumvent him like in a hoss trade--with