Uncle Bunker became of this opinion very soon.  What Mrs. Jackson disclosed to him about May wheat had seemed to be hardly worth the dollar she asked.  He began going to the good ones, and Bean gathered that even their superior gifts left something to be desired.  The brilliant uncle began to accustom his home circle to frowns.  Bean and the older Clara (she was beginning to complain about not sleeping and a pain in her side) were sensible of this change, but the younger Clara only pouted when she noticed it at all, prettily accusing her splendid consort of not caring for her as he had once professed to.  She spent more time over her hair and shopped extensively for feminine trappings.

Then one day his uncle came home, a slinking wreck of beauty, and told Aunt Clara that all was lost save honour.  Bean heard the interesting announcement, and gathered, after a question from his aunt, that his own patrimony had been a part of that all which was lost save honour.  He heard his uncle add tearfully that one shot would end it now.

He was frightened by this, but his Aunt Clara seemed not to be.  He heard her say, “There, there!  Did a nassy ol’ martet do adainst ’ums!” And later she was seen to take him up tea and toast and chicken.

* * * * *

The years seemed to march more swiftly then—­school and growing and little changes in the house.  Boo’ful never fired the shot that would have ended all.  The older Clara inconsequently died and the frivolous Clara took her place in the kitchen.  She had not corrected her light manner, but slowly she changed with the years until she was almost as faded as the old Clara had been.  More ambitious, however, and working to better purpose.  They went to a new and finer house that would hold more boarders; and the sign, which was lettered in gold, said, “Boarders Taken,” a far more dignified sign than the old with its frank appeal of “Boarders Wanted.”  That new sign intimated a noble condescension.

Aunt Clara had not only settled down to be a worker, but she had proved to be a manager.  Boo’ful actually performed little services about the house, staying in the kitchen at meal-time to carve and help serve the food.  Aunt Clara had been unexpected adamant in the matter of his taking a fine revenge on the market that had gone against him.  She refused to provide the very modest sum he pleaded for to this end, and as the two old Uncle Bunkers were equally obdurate—­they said they had known when he married that flutter-budget just how he would end—­his leisure was never seriously menaced.

Aunt Clara was especially firm about the money because of the considerable life-insurance premium she soon began to pay.  It was her whim that little Bean had not been of competent years to lose all save honour, and she had discovered a life-insurance company whose officers were mad enough to compute Boo’ful’s loss to the world in dollars and cents.  He was, in fact, considered an excellent risk.  He did not fade after the manner of the busy Aunt Clara, that gay little wretch whose girlish graces lingered on incongruously—­like jests upon a tombstone.