“I knew those fellows couldn’t stand the strain of the $55 fine, so, turning my back in maidenly modesty to the court, I dug down in the lisle-thread bank and came up with a hundred dollar bill, the first one ever seen in Emporia.  I tossed it carelessly on the desk, remarking, ‘Take it out of that.’  You could have knocked the court’s eyes off with a club.  I don’t think he ever saw that much money in one group before in his life.  The clerk of the court grabbed the fresh-air fund and did a rubber into the family safe for the change.  All quiet along the Potomac.  The whole blooming city didn’t have change for a century note.  Can you beat that?  And they say there is no graft in Kansas.  They had to go over to the speakeasy for a change.  What do you know about that?  A court of a Prohibition State going to a gin-mill for money.

“After we got through telling the court what he reminded us of and what he looked like, we tripped out to the machine and climbed on board and started out again.  We rode around until 3 or 4 o’clock in the morning, and I got to bed just as the help was getting out to do the chores.  Maybe you don’t think that evening’s amusement caused some scandal.

“Why, before breakfast the entire population was wise to the fact that Sabrina, the pride and glory of the village, was out drinking liquor and playing progressive hell with a couple of strange gentlemen.

“If you want anything known in one of those wopburgs, just tell it to the butcher—­it’s got a town crier or a litho threesheet faded.  Mother had the info on the whole game before she got the curl papers out of her hair.  A couple of the Ladies’ Auxiliary to the Herbert Killjoy Memorial did picket duty out in front of the house all night so as to be first in with the glad tidings.

“They galloped up like Sheridan twenty miles away.  The Killjoy sisters beat it, and I was just assuring mother that getting pinched was considered very distingue by the upper crust of the eastern metropolis when in prance the village selectmen followed by the deacons of the church.  When they came into view I knew the bell had rung on Sabrina, the souse.  They all came in looking like the first act of a funeral, and Homer Jenkins, the head deaconorine, looked real solemn, and said, ’We regret to inform you that we have found it our painful duty to dismiss your daughter from the church.’  I spoke up real gay like and said, ’Go as far as you like, I never was a commuter anyway.’

“The selectmen were at the bat next and the main guy of that informed father that I would have to be put under bond to keep the peace, as my actions of yesterday in drinking the champagne wine had caused nine of the village near-sports to get stewed on Rhinewine and seltzer, and to please let them have the money now, as they had to pay the mayor’s salary to-morrow.  Then I delivered my philippic as follows:  ’If you spangled-eyed dubs think you are going to shake