tance to see THEM. The pressure got to be pretty
strong. There was going to be an eclipse of the
moon, and I knew the date and hour, but it was too
far away. Two years. I would have given a good
deal for license to hurry it up and use it now when
there was a big market for it. It seemed a great pity
to have it wasted so, and come lagging along at a time
when a body wouldn't have any use for it, as like as
not. If it had been booked for only a month away, I
could have sold it short; but, as matters stood, I
couldn't seem to cipher out any way to make it do me
any good, so I gave up trying. Next, Clarence found
that old Merlin was making himself busy on the sly
among those people. He was spreading a report that
I was a humbug, and that the reason I didn't accom-