"if you've got either."

"By the Almighty, Squire"--Mr. Arp turned in
his chair with sudden heat--"if I'd lived as long
as you--"

"You have," interrupted the other, stung.
"Twelve years ago!"

"If I'd lived as long as you," Mr. Arp repeated,
unwincingly, in a louder voice, "and had follered
Satan's trail as long as you have, and yet couldn't
recognize it when I see it, I'd git converted and
vote Prohibitionist."

"_I_ don't see it," interjected Uncle Joe Davey,
in his querulous voice. (He was the patriarch of
them all.) "_I_ can't find no cloven-hoof-prints in
the snow."

"All over it, sir!" cried the cynic. "All over it!
Old Satan loves tricks like this. Here's a town
that's jest one squirmin' mass of lies and envy and
vice and wickedness and corruption--"

"Hold on!" exclaimed Colonel Flitcroft. "That's
a slander upon our hearths and our government.
Why, when I was in the Council--"

"It wasn't a bit worse then," Mr. Arp returned,