The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-12-03

Even if they backed out we could sell it somewhere else.'
 ''Yes, that's true" said Victor, recov ering his cheerfulness. Eand maybe for a better price, considering you took the first bid they made. Depend upon it, you could have raised them few hun- dred dollars"
 They fingered awhile longer, talking about the $500 commission Victor hoped to get on secondhand car and as to the advisa bility of taking S1,eOO cash for the garage or thousand down and another thousand on a nine months note.
 Perhaps Matt kept closer to the ve- randa that morning than usual, for it was warm and sunny and likely to tempt the presence of Mrs. Sattane with her rocking chair, her alarming and her 1nterminab1e tongue. For once Matt was eager for Mrs. Sattane, and when at length she appeared he was very agreeable and friendly, drawing up beside her, with his pipe, instead of dropping off the end rail, as he ordi= narily would have done. After a few false starts he got her on the subject of the Marshalls, and, though as a mar rator she was as uncertain as rabbit and apt to give conversational jumps III IHo mOSE TdnQO0 u1T6CLlOnS, always contrfved to bring her back and running again in the way he would have her go.
 The general when a young cavalry officer, hardly indeed more than a boy, had made a runaway match with Miss Koenig of Philadelphia. who was so rich that people used to call her Miss xflmansegg. He had thereupon QiVnn I'll hn nj f11 fn 1lXt instead and from law had graduated into politics and congress. After seven or eight years his wife had died. leaving him with two little boys, who were now middle aged men, one d traveller and writer of some reputation and the other an frQnm1Ster on the lakes, with & raiiro;ttt of his own and fleets of ships. 'rhe general had taken his bereaNemcnt terribly to heart and for awhile went all to pieces l1nttl his friends made interest for him and had him appointeI minister to some far away and insirnificsnt post. more with the idea of benefiting him by the change of scene than launching him into what was to he q distinGJIished career. He rose rari;ily. was constant ly promoted and WAS one of the first American ambr sSadorS when that grade was inaucurated by President
 Mckinley.
 In the meanwhile he had married again, losing, his seea=G 4sife many years later il carriage accident. His daughter. Christine. had narrcwly escaped the same fate. and fer several years had been q hai..1e.ss invalid. TO body ever thinking she would be wei: again. But at last she recovered. ard ,r-&,<, CT, to judge from the daring way she rode and her much talked of flights on skis
 On the Spanish wstr breaking out Marshall lad thrown diplomacy to the winds, and returned to Connecticut to help organize the -State'S quota for tht. national defense, receiving his com mission as a brigadier general of vol unteers, and earning much local re- nown by his. energy. and patriotism It was not his fault that the enrolled citizens never saw a Spaniard, O.. burned anything more deadly than mosquito powder. The picnic sta ge was hardly past before the war was over and the general reappointed to his former post. Since then he had definitely retired more on his daugh- ter's account than his own, it was HoeAANJ LO 40l dSI SS0 SOu0lH1uS OI Ter own people, and marry in her own land, his regard for courts and court life being none of the best.
 He kept up three establishments one in Washington, another at Bar Harbor, and the third. his big, com fortabIe old colonial housesat Fair Oaks. about four miles oIat4of Mana | swan-moving from one to another as the humor seized him. Fair Oaks was. his favorfte, he had owned it ever since his first marriage and had never closed it, partly from sentiment and partly from the political advantage of preserving a roof tree in, his native state. He was a Connecffcut man, and there was the, proof of it for all to see.
 It was very draggingAa Afternoon for Matt. He was restless, could settle to nothing, was both stirretzaIlL depress- ed at the prospect of his syfIE at Fair Oaks. He had dressed wtfh siich care that he was afraid to sit stsWsn, or to leave the porch lest his Imrnaculate shoes might suffer, and was horribly conscious of the crinkling nature of his fresh white waistcOat. No girl could have been in more of a tremor Periodically he went upstairs to look at himself in the glass, to make sure there was not a hair on the neck of his coat, to brush and brush and wor- ry again that his hands were SC large and so sunburned.
 He had ordered a buggy for half past 5, buggy and man to drive it, for he meant to take no chances of miss ing his road. It came too early and caused him renewed agitation in con r. sequence-a quarter of an hour too early, when, as a matter of fact, he would not dare to start before the half hour-giving him a whole fifteen minutes, therefore, to be dawdled ] through, with more crinkling of white waistcoat and more risk to shoes and a whole new access of that suffocating feeling. which he SIlnnoSed to he