were to charge his kodak with chloroform and put me in a state of 
coma, so as to photograph my freckles. ‘Vigilance, eternal vigilance, 
is the price of liberty,’’ said some old orator. That may be so, but I 
know that eternal vigilance is insufficient to guard me against this 
villain’s depredations. Every gun is likely to kick its owner. Some 
cameras are so. This camera kicked 
the villain. Here is the villain himselt. 
He has been on my farm among my 
cornshocks killing my rabbits and quail. 
He is caught red-handed. Though he 
wears after his name a learned title and 
browbeats students with threats of poor 
grades, that will avail him nothing now. 
He has paid no heed to my signs on my 
farm. One is ‘‘Do not watter stalk 
here.’’ Another is 
“No shoting on this 
has found farm.’’ He has paid 
him with my no attention to either 
birds and » sign. His kodak has 
beasts slung caught him ‘‘watter- 
at his belt. ing his stalk,’’ and 
My word for 
it but it shall 
go hard with 
him ere he gets out of the grip 
of the law. He will rue having 
sided with Mrs. Mugwump 
against me, and having joined 
blithely in the witticisms at my 
expense. | will not be revenge- 
ful, but just. A neighbor has the 
sign, ‘‘This farm for sail."’ I do 
not have that because Ais farm 
is not in the market, but the signs | do have mean business, and the 
villain must find out signs mean what they say. ‘No lickin’, no larn- 
in’;’’ but I mean he shall not grow old (he is already grown up) igno- 
rant. I will see that he ‘larns.”’ 
Then the villain is a hunter. He has no conscience. I have seen 
209 
THE VILLAIN AND HIS FRIENDS 
