"Hear that, Nancy! Jeeminy! This is the chance to make a dollar, fer he'll hev a darn hard time satisfyin' me!"
That brought down the house. There was a roar of laughter, and, in the midst of it, the old farmer broke away and scrambled for the stage.
There were some steps at one end, and Frank assisted the man up those, grasping his hand and shaking it warmly as he led him to a seat in the center of the stage.
"Oh, sir!" sighed Merry, with apparent sincerity, "if I had your beautiful cold, I could sneeze out a barrel of money in a very short time."
"Certainly not. After I made the discovery of how easy it is to turn sneezing into good money, I tried to keep a cold all the time. Before that I could not seem to get rid of a cold when I caught it. Since then I am not able to keep one after I have caught it. I used to have a cold in the fall, the winter, the spring, the summer. When I didn't have a cold, I had hay fever. I sneezed till I was sore and weary of life. Then I sat down and set to work on a plan to turn my sneezing into money. I studied over it for many moons, and finally I hit upon a plan. I put it to the test, and the very first day of my experiment I succeeded in sneezing about a peck of copper cents. I was not satisfied with that, and I sought to improve the system. Before the end of the second day, I was able to sneeze five and ten-cent pieces, but my cold was getting better. On the third day I became sufficiently skillful to sneeze silver quarters, but, to my intense regret, I found I could not sneeze very often. The next day I only sneezed seven times, but every sneeze brought me a good new half dollar. When the fifth day came I sneezed just twice, but each time I got a silver dollar. And the following day I was unable to sneeze at all, so I ceased to advance in skill, but I am satisfied I should have been able to sneeze ten-dollar gold pieces within a few more days. Since then I have done everything in my power to catch a good, fat, sneezing cold, but fate is against me. I expose myself to all kinds of wretched weather, but I can't get a cold that will stay with me more than a couple of sneezes. It is a sad, sad fate for one who has made such an important discovery."