CHAPTER V.
HE COMMITS SUICIDE.
Two days after the fair (one day after the bonfire), some time during the afternoon, I found myself alone in the store.

Business was so dull that father, with a yawn, said he guessed he'd go to the post-office and have a chat with the men.
"Be sure you don't leave the store a moment alone, John," was his parting admonition.
Of course I wouldn't think of such a thing--he need not have mentioned it.

I was a good business fellow for my age; the only blunders I ever made were those caused by my failing--the unhappy failing to which I have hitherto alluded.
I sat mournfully on the counter after father left me, my head reclining pensively against a pile of ten-cent calicoes; I was thinking of my grandmother's legacy gone up in smoke--of how Belle looked when she found I had conducted her into the coal-cellar--of those tidies, cradle-quilts, bib-aprons, dolls' and ladies' fixings, which had been nefariously foisted upon me, a base advantage taken of my diffidence!--and I felt sad.

I felt more than melancholy--I felt mad.

I resented the tricks of the fair ones.