Yours respectfully,
EDWARD EASTMAN ELLSWORTH.

Mr. Van Kamp passed the note to his wife and sat down or a large chair.  He was glad that the chair was comfortable and roomy.  Evelyn picked up the bills and tucked them into her waist.  She never overlooked any of her perquisites.  Mrs. Van Kamp read the note, and the tip of her nose became white.  She also sat down, but she was the first to find her voice.

“Atrocious!” she exclaimed.  “Atrocious!  Simply atrocious, Belmont.  This is a house of public entertainment.  They can’t turn us out in this high-minded manner!  Isn’t there a law or something to that effect?”

“It wouldn’t matter if there was,” he thoughtfully replied.  “This fellow Ellsworth would be too clever to be caught by it.  He would say that the house was not a hotel but a private residence during the period for which he has rented it.”

Personally, he rather admired Ellsworth.  Seemed to be a resourceful sort of chap who knew how to make money behave itself, and do its little tricks without balking in the harness.

“Then you can make him take down the sign!” his wife declared.

He shook his head decidedly.

“It wouldn’t do, Belle,” he replied.  “It would be spite, not retaliation, and not at all sportsmanlike.  The course you suggest would belittle us more than it would annoy them.  There must be some other way.”

He went in to talk with Uncle Billy.

“I want to buy this place,” he stated.  “Is it for sale?”

“It sartin is!” replied Uncle Billy.  He did not merely twinkle this time.  He grinned.

“How much?”

“Three thousand dollars.”  Mr. Tutt was used to charging by this time, and he betrayed no hesitation.

“I’ll write you out a check at once,” and Mr. Van Kamp reached in his pocket with the reflection that the spot, after all, was an ideal one for a quiet summer retreat.

“Air you a-goin’ t’ scribble that there three thou-san’ on a piece o’ paper?” inquired Uncle Billy, sitting bolt upright.  “Ef you air a-figgerin’ on that, Mr. Kamp, jis’ you save yore time.  I give a man four dollars fer one o’ them check things oncet, an’ I owe myself them four dollars yit.”

Mr. Van Kamp retired in disorder, but the thought of his wife and daughter waiting confidently on the porch stopped him.  Moreover, the thing had resolved itself rather into a contest between Ellsworth and himself, and he had done a little making and breaking of men and things in his own time.  He did some gatling-gun thinking out by the newel-post, and presently rejoined Uncle Billy.

“Mr. Tutt, tell me just exactly what Mr. Ellsworth rented, please,” he requested.

“Th’ hull house,” replied Billy, and then he somewhat sternly added:  “Paid me spot cash fer it, too.”

Mr. Van Kamp took a wad of loose bills from his trousers pocket, straightened them out leisurely, and placed them in his bill book, along with some smooth yellowbacks of eye-bulging denominations.  Uncle Billy sat up and stopped twiddling his thumbs.