Page:Keeping the Peace.pdf/145

 made of heavy oak planks studded with fancy-headed nails. Some of the nail-heads were shaped like Tudor roses and some like Pilgrim shells; but others were shaped like letters of the alphabet and punctuation marks. And the Chinaman never came until you had had time to read several times over and commit to memory the following:

That was Ruggles' motto. People gossiped about him. They said that he was an atheist, and that he believed man to be decendeddescended [sic] from a monkey, and was an advocate of free love. And he didn't care what people said about him. And hence the motto.

Some people went so far as to say that Mr. and Mrs. Ruggles were not married. As a matter of fact they were, but as they really loved each other very much and had always been absolutely faithful to each other, it didn't seem to matter very much whether they were married or not. As Mr. Ruggles himself often said: "Marriage wasn't invented for people who love each other and want to live together. It was made for people who hate each other and want to live apart." But he would usually add, and sometimes for the special benefit