The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1911-09-21

- m1nuCel0SS -/ sg it paid And he had problems too, in
 a plenty. The casual traveller would not have guessed the village in which Gribber lived and a place where problems were bred; but if he had had Gribbers brickfield to deal with as well as his little farm and his chandler's shop he would have known better.
 Thorpe Dedham not very far from Lon don, when you found it--after much trouble-on as the crow fies but the quickest journey between London and Thorpe Dedham, on solid earth. took
 The nearest railway station to Thorpe Dedham was five miles away
 By a. strict attention to his little problems. Daniel Gribber was doing very we'll in his little way. The problem of getting men to work his brickheld and farm for lower wages than was usual he solved with comparati ease, for work was scarce thereabout; and the problem of making them spend those wages at his chandler's shop buying articles of whatever quality he chose to give, for whatever prices he chose to charge, was not so difficult as you might expect. E If Gribber's business had been transferred to America and multiplied by about million ,s ]. figures stopped long way short of millions. or even Thousands; and Gribber was too busy mak- ing 1t pay to bother about calling it anything in = His little problems were generally solved on aunt difficulty none had involved actual defeat cept that of getting the local doctor to pay com their families As to that he never forgave the doctor. It wouldn't have been much, and what ever it was might easily have been addea .o ye see
  rudeiy angry at the suggestion. Clearly no man of business.
 She was dying. and the problem, of course, was to make 1t pay. Aunt Porcher was one of those hidden wealth-cloudy, indefinite, speculative, hid den wealth, but wealth undoubtedyA She was a widow of small tradesman in London, and she lived in lodgings in Wandsworth- as
 In Gribbar's family wealth was counted, as 1 have hinted. not in thousands. but in hundreds; and when Gribber labeled his aunt with her prob able hgure-mentally he labeled everybody with probable fgure-he never ventpred beyond the higher hundreds rof he had rather superstitious dread of expecting too much.
 # The great danger in the problem of making Aunt Porcher pay yas grandniece or hers being nearer the prey. It was because of this danger that Gribber ventured the extravagance Of two journeys to London. paying retprn fare fare of f these journeys he found his aunt looking exceed ingIy pale. and feeling very bad, so that he re, by his aunt's conplaints that .her grandniece was neeIecting her. For it seemed that the thought less shopgirl failed to come and tend her relation. in spite of having nearly an hour to herself every night from the shop only a few miles on at Peck
 Gribber expressed a proper moral reproduction of such sinful callousness, and went away good deal happier about his four and sixpence. A man of forty whose habits incline him to take a vast deal of trouble to gain shilling does not gladly let slip four of them, and sixpence over, except The second visit was more eventfui. The old woman very bad indeed now, and the doctor gave so little hope that Gribber grew very hope full He was rather portentous doctor, far better able to impress his patients than to cure them Gribbsg met him n thg staiEs and in reply to his
 s'Ha. hums hum! This is not case in which I can conscentiously give you any reasonable ex- pectation of your cunts recovery .s Hum!' When we have pernicious anaemia in person of your aunt's age and when also have concurrenty an enlargement of the lymphatics of obscure causa tion-hum-then have not far to look for the end. Hum! About fortnight should say. Hun!"