Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/184

 abundant, and outwardly it had escaped the blight of the scroll saw.

But the civilization of Little Arcady would be alien to the newcomers, and I was apprehensive that it would also be difficult.

Further, I suspected that J. R. C. Tuckerman, with all his genius for hard work, lacked the administrative gifts of a true financier. He said a hundred thousand pullets when he should have said twenty-five, and he seemed to consider his banked hoard of gold money to be inexhaustible when it was in fact merely a sum slightly greater than he was wont to juggle with in his darkened mind.

I was not surprised, therefore, when I found him rather dejectedly sunk in figures one afternoon about a week after Miss Caroline's "home-fixin's" had begun to arrive.

These were all about him at the front door, in the hall, and extending far into the rooms, a truly depressing chaos of packing boxes, swathed tables, chairs, bureaus, and barrels of china. Nor was this all; for even as I loitered up to the door the dray of Sam Murdock halted in front with another huge load.

Clem raised his head from a sheet of sprawled figures and regarded this fresh trouble with something like consternation. In one hand he fluttered a packet of receipted freight bills, and he spoke as one in an evil dream.

"Yes, seh, Mahstah Majah, it suttinly do seem lahk