through."

"Good! It's a bargain." Kellogg lifted his glass high in air. "To the
fortune hunter!" he cried, half laughing.

Duncan nervously fingered the stem of his glass. "God help the future
Mrs. Duncan!" he said, and drank.




IV


TRIUMPH OF MR. HOMER LITTLEJOHN

The twenty-first of June was a day of memorable triumph to me, a day of
memorable events for Radville.

Only the evening previous Will Bigelow and I had indulged in
acrimonious argument in the office of the Bigelow House, the subject of
contention being the importance of the work to which I am devoting my
declining years, to wit, the recording of _The History of Radville
Township, Westerly County, Pennsylvania_; Will maintaining with that
obstinacy for which he is famous, that nothing ever had happened, does
happen, can or will happen in our community, I insisting gently but
firmly that it knows no day unmarked by important occurrence (for it
would ill become me, as the only literary man in Radville, to yield a
point in dispute with the proprietor of the town tavern). Besides, he
was wrong, even as I was indisputably right--only he had not the grace