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Show the exact amount to the fraction of a quart. , "During the ensuing year," he went on, "you will have to use more. The company isn't making enough out of you." I promised to buy three more lamps and to start the fires hereafter with his make of oil only. "Now, what other oil do you use?" he asked. "None to speak of," I answered. "That won't do at all, young man. I have these blanks to fill out out and I want answers to every one of them. Got a sewing machine?" ma-chine?" "Yes." "How much oil do you use on it in a year?". "A quart." "Use two quarts next year." "All right," I answered. I had" made a guess as to the amount, but I thought We migh be able to get away with two quarts by hiring a seamstress and keeping her at work all the year. "Got a baby curriage?" "Yes." "How much oil do you use on it?" "Two quarts." This was another anoth-er guess. "Use four quarts next year." I tried .to explain that we couldn't do that very well as our baby had outgrown the crriage and we hadn't made any arrangements for another. But , it didn't work. He simply insisted on our using four quarts A HIRELING OF MONOPOLY. He rang the doorbell as thongh he wished to pull the house over on top of him, and when I went to the door he rushed in, took the most comfortable seat in the room (my seat, of course), told me rather gruffly to sit down, pulled out a book and pencil and began questioning question-ing me. It was all done so quickly, and with such an air of authority, that I obeyed like a 5-year-old child. ;What is your name, age, Occupa- for the baby carriage if we had to get twins to make it' necessary. Then he went on with a list of a hundred things that I did not have, ordered me to get one at least of each and keep it well oiled. At last I thought he had finished, but I was mistaken. "Said you had a baby, I believe?" he asked. "Yes." "How much castor oil do you use?" I made another guess, He told me to use the Standard Oil company's com-pany's best kerosene in the future, and give it to him every night. I promised, of course. ' "You or. any of your family got tuberculosis?" "Yes," I answered, from habit it was the first time in my life I ever told a lie. "Use Standard Oil company's Ai A oil instead of Cod-liver-oil in future, and have at least two mem- tion, sex, and previons condition of servitude?" he asked in one breath. I answered in half a breath, for that was all I had left, and I was so rattled that I actually told him I was a woman when everyone knows I am a man. "Do you use any oil in your business?" bus-iness?" But this time J had recovered a moiety of my sang-froid and a little of my savoir faire. I "Well," I replied, "1 use some " rather oily phrases when I am corresponding cor-responding with editors." j "Non of yer lip, young feller," Isaid my vistor. "I represent the great Standard Oil compary, that now owns the greater part of the ; United States of America, and j more or less of the rest of the world. I One word of impudence and I will raise up their wrath against you. Now, how much kerosene oil do you burn in a year?" I called in my wife, she got out her account books, and we told him bers of your family sick with it be fore I come around again. Understand?" Under-stand?" I told him I did, and he went out of the house as rapidly as he came in. Times may be hard for other people, but I'll bet they ain't for the Standard Oil company. I got ahead of him on one thing, though. I had an oilskin coat in the house, and he never found it out. Yellow Kid Magazine. |