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 listen to me." John would bite his under lip and look out of the shop window, and when his companion had done speaking, force himself to smile and bid the poor fool remember about faint hearts and fair ladies. This was, of course, wholly unsatisfactory, indeed incomprehensible to him, and he would seek for something more definite, as though John was the ruler of Ruth's destinies.

"Neighbor Watson approves of my suit, I think," William had recently remarked, in the course of a long account of his troubles, and at this assertion John had exclaimed, Oh! so suddenly that William was startled and would have asked endless questions, but his one time partner positively refused to continue the conversation, and forbade the subject being again broached in such a manner that even William could understand, and was henceforth silent on that point.

John Bishop from that morning worked more steadily than before. Never for a moment did his tools lie unused upon the bench or the fire get low. He had hundreds of nails and spikes to make, for there were