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 Dad was "busy." He didn't like it much; but said he wanted to see some pop-guns.

I took him back to the toy section and got out some long, striped wooden ones with a cork in one end and a sort of a piston in the other. He said those would do all right; but of course I didn't know the trade-price on them, and so I went to the office with one.

Dad was deeper than ever in the argument. I held up the pop-gun and said:—"How much, to Mr. Wright?"

Dad didn't stop talking to Judge Shelby; but he reached out and took the gun, and pulled the cork out and looked into the hole, and then put it back, shoved the stick up and down a few times, and then handed it back and went on talking to Judge Shelby.

I stood and waited for a while, and then I heard Mr. Wright shuffling outside of the door, and I held it out again:—"Mr. Wright wants to know how much for a dozen."

Dad took it again, stopped talking, and turned it over and over in his hand and tried the stick again. "Yes," he said, "a violin may have a good tone, Judge Shelby, even if the neck isn't—"