Page:Castlemon--Joe Wayring at Home.djvu/62

 ten-pins for soda water. Soda water wasn't hurtful, and neither were ten-pins nor billiards; but the conditions under which the one was imbibed and the others played certainly were. In Mount Airy there was none of that sort of thing. Of course there were billiard rooms and ten-pin alleys there, but they belonged to the hotels, and were kept for the exclusive use of the guests. The men who had just marched up the street owned all the land for miles around, and they would not sell a foot of it. They were willing to lease it for a term of years, but before they did so, they wanted to know all about the man who applied for the lease, and the business he intended to follow while he remained in town. In that way they made the society of the village just what they wanted it to be. It is true that some objectionable characters now and then secured a temporary foothold there, but as soon as they were detected, they were "bounced" without ceremony.

Mr. Farnsworth and Mr. Bigden thought Mount Airy would be just the place for their boys, but the latter would have raised the most decided objections if the subject of a change of