She was dreadfully upset herself. As
for Sam, he kept saying that the 'prints,' as he called them, were
very valuable. Though I'm sure I can't see why; they were only of
actor people, and they had all died sixty or seventy years ago."
"Actors!" the doctor said. "Poor Samuel! he hates the theatre. I do
believe he'd rather have pictures of the devil."
"Oh, but wait. You haven't heard the rest of it. It appears that when
the boy looked at 'em yesterday morning he found they weren't as
valuable as he thought--I don't understand that part of it," Martha
acknowledged--"so what does he do but march downstairs, and put 'em
all in the kitchen stove! What do you think of that?"
"I think," said William King, "that he has always gone off at half-
cock ever since he was born. But Martha, the serious thing is his
spending money that didn't belong to him."
"I should think it was serious! If he'd been some poor little clerk in
the bank, instead of Mr. Samuel Wright's only son, he would have found
it was serious! Willy, what do you make of him?"
"He is queer," William said; "queer as Dick's hatband; but that's all.
Sam wouldn't do a mean thing, or a dirty thing, any more than a girl
would."
"And now he thinks he's in love with this Richie woman," Martha went
on--but William made his escape. He had to go and hitch up, he said.
Before he took Jinny out of her stall he went into the harness-room
and hunted about on a shelf until, behind a rusty currycomb and two
empty oil-bottles, he found a small mirror.
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