So Peggy had kept them on a
shelf in his "office" for several years, and now, when his eye chanced
to light upon them, he gave a snort of triumph and pounced upon them
eagerly. Mr. Merrick was a newcomer. Without doubt he could be induced
to buy a copy of Radford's Lives.
An hour later McNutt was on his mission, the three copies, which had
been carefully dusted, reclining on the buggy seat beside him. Arrived
at the Wegg farm, he drove up to the stile and alighted.
Louise was reading in the hammock, and merely glanced at the little man,
who solemnly stumped around to the back door with the three red volumes
tucked underneath his arm. He had brought them all along to make his
errand "look like business."
"Where's the nabob?" he asked blind Nora.
"What's that, Mr. McNutt?" she inquired, as if puzzled. She knew his
voice, as she did that of nearly everyone with whom she had ever been
brought in contact.
"Why, the nabob; the boss; Mr. Merrick."
"Oh. He's in the barn with Tom, I guess."
McNutt entered the barn. Uncle John was seated upon an overturned pail
watching Old Hucks oil Joe's harness. The agent approached him with a
deferential bow.
"Sir," said he, "you'll 'scuse my comin' agin so soon to be a-botherin';
but I hev here three copies of Radford's famis wucks on the Lives o' the
Saints, in a edishun dee looks----"
"A what?"
"A edishun dee looks, which means extry fine.
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