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be a Lilliputian army double-quicking (to what purpose?) down the endless slope of eternity.

Belshue gave up the shank of the afternoon altogether; he brushed briefly at any dust of glint of gold filings which might have clung to his clothes; then, glancing at his watches again, this time to calculate how long it would be before he really called on Nessie Sutton, he turned out into the village street.

Now, as a matter of fact, Mr. Belshue had nowhere at all to go. There were four or five places in the village where men congregated for whatever social life was possible in Irontown. "Loafing places," the villagers called them, and all the communal life they enjoyed was given this ungracious and derogatory name of "loafing."

There was rather an unexpected range to the village "loafing places" from the thoroughgoing obscenity of the garage up through Bell's Grocery, Bingham's Butcher Shop, to the religio-philosophical gatherings in Fuller's Drug Store. But in few of these places and only on rare occasions would any one debate with Mr. belshue the existence of God, so the jeweller came and went, filled with a rancorous and unused dialectic.

On this particular evening Belshue did not stop or want to stop at any of these places. He walked along the tranquil street wishing that Nessie were with him, but she never would walk with him in the village. It was one of her notions which pained the jeweller at times, but she would get over that; at least, he hoped she would.

As Belshue passed Fuller's Drug Store he heard an aggressive voice inside demanding, "Gentlemen, see if you can get this 'un: If the half of nine is three what would the third of twenty be?"

Came a chorus of "But, perfesser, the half of nine ain't three. . . ."

At that moment, Mr. Ditmas, the engineer, came out of the door of the drug store lighting a cigar with a twinkle