eight hundred or what, how about sixty-four dollars I paid out for
cabbages."

It required a great many letters back and forth before the Audit
Department was able to understand why the error had been made of billing
one hundred and sixty instead of eight hundred, and still more time for it
to get the meaning of the "cabbages."

Flannery was crowded into a few feet at the extreme front of the office.
The pigs had all the rest of the room and two boys were employed
constantly attending to them. The day after Flannery had counted the
guinea- pigs there were eight more added to his drove, and by the time the
Audit Department gave him authority to collect for eight hundred Flannery
had given up all attempts to attend to the receipt or the delivery of
goods. He was hastily building galleries around the express office, tier
above tier. He had four thousand and sixty-four guinea-pigs to care for!
More were arriving daily.

Immediately following its authorization the Audit Department sent another
letter, but Flannery was too busy to open it. They wrote another and then
they telegraphed:

"Error in guinea-pig bill. Collect for two guinea-pigs, fifty cents.
Deliver all to consignee."

Flannery read the telegram and cheered up. He wrote out a bill as rapidly
as his pencil could travel over paper and ran all the way to the Morehouse
home. At the gate he stopped suddenly. The house stared at him with vacant
eyes. The windows were bare of curtains and he could see into the empty
rooms. A sign on the porch said, "To Let." Mr. Morehouse had moved!