"Mer-tun, please let him do it to you again." "Mer-tun, please let him do it to you again." And to the back porch came Mrs.Gashwiler to say it was a good thing he'd got that clothesline back, and came her husband wishing to be told what outlandish notion Merton Gill would next get into the thing he called his head.

It was the beginning of the end.
Followed a week of strained relations with the Gashwiler household, including Dexter, and another week of relations hardly more cordial.
But thirty dollars was added to the hoard which was now counted almost nightly.

And the cruder wits of the village had made rather a joke of Merton's adventure.

Some were tasteless enough to rally him coarsely upon the crowded street or at the post office while he awaited his magazines.
And now there were two hundred and seventy-five dollars to put him forever beyond their jibes.

He carefully rehearsed a scathing speech for Gashwiler.