The Man that Maddened a Continent
the last one to get excited, and preferred to lie back and blow smoke rings while everybody else was screaming. But he had fallen in love with the Vincents right off, and had made tremendous efforts to please and keep them. It was he who had put it into their heads to buy the Howard place, and that at a price that even two swell little innocents could see was a bargain. They were devoted to papa, too, and blindly trusted all the negotiations to him, so he was really to blame for letting Marsden jump in and get the property, while he waited and dillydallied and dickered to save them that thirty thousand. Poor papa! I was awfully sorry for him. He couldn't have been more depressed if a Limited had smashed up and let in the line for a million.
Well, so the Vincents left, and Mr. Marsden sneaked in, and papa went on like a she-bear robbed of its cubs. You only had to say "Marsden" for him to explode, and he spent most of his spare time thinking of ways to run him out. But the puzzle man was ter-
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