“Of course—­what do you mean by axin’ that?”

“Nothing; good-day.”

“Good-day,” grunted the miser, turning his back, as a hint for him to leave—­a hint which Bush did not need, for he was in a tumult of excitement.

“That is the queerest thing that ever happened,” he said to himself when he reached the public highway, and began hurrying along the road in the direction of Newark.  “If he had paid me my full wages I would have told him, but all these are mine, and I shall sell them; won’t Professor Hartranft be delighted, but not half as much as mother and I will be.”

That evening Mr. Ashton and his wife had just finished their supper when Professor Hartranft, a pleasant, refined-looking gentleman, knocked at their door.

“I wish to inquire,” said he, after courteously saluting the couple, “whether you have any old coins in the house.”

“No,” was the surly response of the farmer, “we don’t keep ’em.”

“But you had quite a collection.”

“I had ‘leven dollars and seventy-five cents’ worth, but I paid ’em out this mornin’.”

“To a boy named Bushrod Wyckoff?”

“Yas.”

“They were given to him unreservedly?—­that is, you renounce all claim upon them?”

“What the blazes ar’ you drivin’ at?” demanded the angry farmer.  “I owed him ’leven dollars and seventy-five cents for wages, and I paid him purcisely that amount, and have his receipt in full.  I’d like to know what business it is of yours anyway.”

Now came the professor’s triumph.

“Young Wyckoff called at my office this afternoon, and I bought a number of the coins from him.”

“What!” exclaimed the amazed farmer, “you didn’t pay him nothin’ extra for that rusty old money, did you?  You must be crazy.”

“I did, and shall make a handsome thing of it.  For instance, among the coins which you gave him was a copper penny, with a liberty cap, of 1793; I paid Bush three dollars for that; I gave him twenty-five dollars for a half dime coined in 1802; twenty dollars for a quarter dollar of 1827; the same sum for a half dollar, fillet head, of 1796; and, what caps all, five hundred dollars for a silver dollar of 1804.  There are only five or six of the latter in existence, and I shall sell this specimen for at least eight hundred dollars.  Mr. Ashton, sometimes a mean man overreaches himself, and it looks as though you had made a mistake.  I bid you good-day, sir.”

The numismatist spoke the truth; and when the miserly old farmer realized how completely he had turned the tables on himself, it is enough to say that his feelings may be “better imagined than described.”

A BATTLE IN THE AIR.