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 it; Mrs. Duke had it down pretty well herself. It was another wonder of an unaccountable place to Peck. His eyes bulged again; he stared at the complacent sheepwoman in amazement too great for words.

"The dickens you do!" he said at last, feebly, almost overcome by the enormity of his surprise.

"Yes," she said. "How's business in St. Joe?"

"Rairin'," said Peck, brightening. "Excuse me a minute—I've got something I want to show you boys."

Tippie looked after him with considerable interest as he unfolded his great length and left the room briskly.

"What's he got them stripes down his pants for?" he asked, turning to Rawlins. "Is he a soldier or something?"

"He's a mail-order man," Mrs. Duke whispered, not waiting for Rawlins' reply. "He's Edith's mail-order beau."

"Oh, for heaven's sake, Aunt Lila!' Edith protested, furiously red, about at the end of her endurance for this joke.

"Mail-order?" Tippie repeated, mystified, but not in the least amused, as far as any expression of his features disclosed. "You mean ordered out of the catalogue on one of them yellow blanks?"

Peck was in the door before Mrs. Duke could go into the romantic affair any farther. He came to the table bearing a large folio book of some sort, with a picture in colors of a sprucely dressed man on the cover, which he put down on the cloth. Rawlins recognized it as a tailor's style book. On this Peck spread a number of