air of a man about to demolish his deadliest foe.

"So you are Miss Phelps. Well, I've wanted to meet you. I read a piece
you wrote in a magazine. It was about Our Town. It did not please Me."

I bowed with the interrogatory air which seemed to be expected of me.
Being just then very much in love with that very lovable place, I was
puzzled with this accusation, and quite unable to recall, out of the
warm flattery which I had heaped upon the town in cool print, any
visible cause of offence.

"You said," pursued my accuser, angrily, "that we had odors here. You
said Our Town smelled of fish. Now, you know, _we_ get so used to
these smells _we like 'em!_ It gave great offence to the community,
madam. And I really thought at one time--feelin' ran so high--I thought
it would kill the sale of your book!"

From that day to this I do not believe the idea has visited the brain of
this estimable person that a book could circulate in any other spot upon
the map than within his native town. This delicious bit of provincialism
served to make life worth living for many a long day.

There was fun enough in this sort of thing to "keep one up," so that one
could return bravely to the chief end of existence; for this seemed for
many years to be nothing less, and little else, than the exercise of
those faculties called forth by the wails of the bereaved. From every
corner of the civilized globe, and in its differing languages, they came
to me--entreaties, outpourings, cries of agony, mutterings of despair,
breathings of the gentle hope by which despair may be superseded;
appeals for help which only the Almighty could have given; demands for