wagon-loads of Dustless-Dusters. He had spent a long life collecting
them, and now, having gathered all there were in the country, he was
going back to the city, in a last pathetic, a last heroic, effort to
find the one Dustless-Duster more.

It was the old man's twelve two-horse loads that were pathetic. There
were many sorts of things in those twelve loads, of many lands, of many
dates, but all of one stamp. The mark was sometimes hard to find,
corroded sometimes nearly past deciphering, yet never quite gone. The
red letters were indelible on every piece, from the gross of antique
candle-moulds (against the kerosene's giving out) to an ancient
coffin-plate, far oxidized, and engraved "Jones," which, the old man
said, as he pried it off the side of the barn, "might come in handy any
day."

The old man has since died and been laid to rest. Upon his coffin was
set a new silver plate, engraved simply and truthfully, "Brown."

We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain, says Holy Writ,
that we can carry nothing out. But it is also certain that we shall
attempt to carry out, or try to find as soon as we are out, a
Dustless-Duster. For we did bring something with us into this world,
losing it temporarily, to be forever losing and finding it; and when we
go into another world, will it not be to carry the thing with us there,
or to continue there our eternal search for it? We are not so certain
of carrying nothing out of this world, but we are certain of leaving
many things behind.

Among those that I shall leave behind me is The Perfect Automatic
Carpet-Layer. But I did not buy that. She did. It was one of the