"Which reminds me. I've
got a noospaper, an' only four weeks' old, the _Seattle
Post-Intelligencer_."
"Has the United States and Spain--"
"Not so fast, not so fast!" The long Yankee waved his arms for
silence, cutting off Frona's question which was following fast on that
of Corliss.
"But have you read it?" they both demanded.
"Unh huh, every line, advertisements an' all."
"Then do tell me," Frona began. "Has--"
"Now you keep quiet, Miss Frona, till I tell you about it reg'lar.
That noospaper cost me fifty dollars--caught the man comin' in round
the bend above Klondike City, an' bought it on the spot. The dummy
could a-got a hundred fer it, easy, if he'd held on till he made
town--"
"But what does it say? Has--"
"Ez I was sayin', that noospaper cost me fifty dollars. It's the only
one that come in. Everybody's jest dyin' to hear the noos. So I
invited a select number of 'em to come here to yer parlors to-night,
Miss Frona, ez the only likely place, an' they kin read it out loud, by
shifts, ez long ez they want or till they're tired--that is, if you'll
let 'em have the use of the place."
"Why, of course, they are welcome. And you are very kind to--"
He waved her praise away. "Jest ez I kalkilated. Now it so happens,
ez you said, that I was pinched on sugar. So every mother's son and
daughter that gits a squint at that paper to-night got to pony up five
cups of sugar.
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