had been dyed by some of them Greek gods you're readin' about. Now if I
could put them things on paper, I wouldn't care a haycock to be
President. No, sir."

The storekeeper's amazement as he listened to this speech may be
imagined. Was this Jethro Bass? If so, here was a side of him the
existence of which no one suspected. Wetherell forgot the matter in hand.

"Why don't you put that on paper?" he exclaimed.

Jethro smiled, and made a deprecating motion with his thumb.

"Sometimes when I hain't busy, I drop into the state library at the
capital and enjoy myself. It's like goin' to another world without any
folks to bother you. Er--er--there's books I'd like to talk to you
about--sometime."

"But I thought you told me you didn't read much, Mr. Bass?"

He made no direct reply, but unfolded the newspaper in his hand, and then
Wetherell saw that it was only a clipping.

"H-happened to run across this in a newspaper--if this hain't this
county, I wahn't born and raised here. If it hain't Coniston Mountain
about seven o'clock of a June evening, I never saw Coniston Mountain.
Er--listen to this."

Whereupon he read, with a feeling which Wetherell had not supposed he
possessed, an extract: and as the storekeeper listened his blood began to
run wildly. At length Jethro put down the paper without glancing at his