cost, and we do not intend to take a cent more. We get things here in such small quantities that I can tell quite easily what a meal costs us, and I have calculated that bill very carefully."
"So I should think, madam," said the artist; "but it is not quite right. You have charged nothing for your trouble and services."
"No," said my wife, "for I took no additional trouble to get your meals. What I did, I should have done if you had not come. To be sure I did spend a few minutes preparing your room. I wall charge you seven twenty-fourths of a cent for that, thus making your bill twenty-three cents—even money."
"I cannot gainsay reasoning like yours, madam," he said, and he took a quarter from a very fat old pocket-book and handed it to her. She gravely gave him two cents change, and then taking the bill, receipted it, and handed it back to him.
We were sorry to part with our guest, for he was evidently a good fellow. I walked with him a little way up the road, and got him to let me copy his bill in my memorandum-book. The original, he said, he would always keep.
A day or two after the artist's departure we were standing on the front piazza. We had had a late breakfast—consequent upon a long tramp the day before—and had come out to see what sort of a day it was likely to be. We had hardly made up our minds on the subject when the morning stage came up at full speed and stopped at our gate.
"Hello!" cried the driver. He was not our driver. He was a tall man in high boots, and had a great reputation as a manager of horses—so Danny Carson told me afterward. There were two drivers on the
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