[Illustration:  THE CARBOLIC DOOR-MAT]

“And as this is offensive to many persons, I give to each purchaser a ‘nose-guard,’ which is to be worn upon the nose while in a house where the carbolic mat is placed.  This nose-guard is filled with a substance which completely neutralizes the smell, and it has only one disadvantage.  Now, what is that?”

“Are you goig to quid and led me breathe, or are you goig to stay here all day log?”

“Have patience, now; I’m coming to the point.  I say, what is that?  It is that the neutralizing substance in the nose-guard evaporates too quickly.  And how do I remedy that?  I give to every man who buys a mat and a nose-guard two bottles of ‘neutralizer.’  What it is composed of is a secret.  But the bottles are to be carried in the pocket, so as to be ready for every emergency.  The disadvantage of this plan consists of the fact that the neutralizer is highly explosive, and if a man should happen to sit down on a bottle of it in his coat-tail pocket suddenly it might hist him through the roof.  But see how beautiful my scheme is.”

“Oh, thudder add lightnig! aid you ever goig to quid?”

“See how complete it is!  By paying twenty dollars additional, every man who takes a mat has his life protected in the Hopelessly Mutual Accident Insurance Company, so that it really makes no great difference whether he is busted through the shingles or not.  Now, does it?”

“Oh, dode ask me.  I dode care a ced about id, adyway.”

“Well, then, what I want you to do is to give me a first-rate notice in your paper, describing the invention, giving the public some general notion of its merits and recommending its adoption into general use.  You give me a half-column puff, and I’ll make the thing square by leaving you one of the mats, with a couple of bottles of the neutralizer and a nose-guard.  I’ll leave them now.”

“Whad d’you say?”

“I say I’ll just leave you a mat and the other fixings for you to look over at your leisure.”

“You biserable scoundrel, if you lay wod ob those blasted thigs dowd here, I’ll burder you od the spod!  I wod stad such foolishness.”

“Won’t you notice it, either?”

“Certaidly nod.  I woulded do id for ten thousad dollars a lide.”

“Well, then, let it alone; and I hope one of those epidemic diseases will get you and lay you up for life.”

As Mr. Barker withdrew, Major Slott threw up the windows, and after catching his breath, he called down stairs to a reporter,

“Perkins, follow that man and hear what he’s got to say, and then blast him in a column of the awfulest vituperation you know how to write.”

Perkins obeyed orders, and now Barker has a libel suit pending against The Patriot, while the carbolic mat has not yet been introduced to this market.

* * * * *

Mr. Barker was not a more agreeable visitor than the book-canvasser who, upon the same day, circulated about the village.  He came into my office with a portfolio under his arm.  Placing it upon the table, removing a ruined hat, and wiping his nose upon a ragged handkerchief that had been so long out of wash that it was positively gloomy, he said,