“Mugs, come here,” called Dick Bowman. “Take that shovel,” commanded the father, “and hold it over Grant’s face to keep the dirt from smothering him.” The boy looked in terror at the roof dropping dirt and ready to fall, but the father glared at the son and he obeyed. No one spoke, but four men worked–all that could stand about him. They dug out his body; they released his legs, they freed his feet, and when he was free they helped him up and hurried him down the passage which he had traversed four days ago. Before they turned into the main bottom room, he was sick with the stench. And as he turned into that room, where the cage landed, he saw by the lantern lights and by the flaring torches held by a dozen men, a great congregation of the dead–some piled upon others, some in attitudes of prayer, some shielding their comrades in death, some fleeing and stricken prone upon the floor, some sitting, looking the foe in the face. Men were working with the bodies–trying to sort them into a kind of order; but the work had just begun.
The weakened men, led by their rescuers, picked their way through the corpses and went to the top in a cage. Far down in the shaft, the daylight cut them like a knife. And as they mounted higher and higher, they could hear the murmur of voices above them, and Grant could hear the sobs of women and children long before he reached the top. The word that men had been rescued passed out of the shaft house before they could get out of the cage, and a great shout went up.
The men walked out of the shaft house and saw all about them, upon flat cars, upon the dump near the shaft, upon buildings around the shaft house, a great crowd of cheering men and women, pale, drawn, dreadful faces, illumined by eager eyes. Grant lifted his eyes to the crowd. There in a carriage beside Henry Fenn, Grant saw Margaret staring at him, and saw her turn pale and slide down into her husband’s arms, as she recognized Grant’s face among those who had come out of death. Then he saw his father and little Kenyon in the crowd and he dashed through the thick of it to them. There he held the boy high in the air, and cried as the little arms clung about his neck.
The great hoarse whistles roared and the shrill siren whistles screamed and the car bells clanged and the church bells rang. But they did not roar and scream and peal and toll for money and wealth and power, but for life that was returned. As for the army of the dead below, for all their torture, for all their agony and the misery they left behind for society to heal or help or neglect–the army of the dead had its requiem that New Year’s eve, when the bells and whistles and sirens clamored for money that brings wealth, and wealth that brings power, and power that brings pleasure, and pleasure that brings death–and death?–and death?
The town had met death. But no one even in that place of mourning could answer the question that the child heard in the bells. And yet that divine spark of heroism that burns unseen in every heart however high, however low–that must be the faltering, uncertain light which points us to the truth across the veil through the mists made by our useless tears.
And thus a New Year in Harvey began its long trip around the sun, with its sorrows and its joys, with its merry pantomime and its mutes mourning upon the hearse, with its freight of cares and compensations and its sad ironies. So let us get on and ride and enjoy the journey.
CHAPTER XVII
A CHAPTER WHICH INTRODUCES SOME POSSIBLE GODS
When Grant Adams had told and retold his story to the reporters and had eaten what Dr. Nesbit would let him eat, it was late in the afternoon. He lay down to sleep with the sun still shining through the shutters in his low-ceiled, west bed room. Through the night his father sat or slept fitfully beside him and when the morning sun was high, and still the young man slept on, the father guarded him, and would let no one enter the house. At noon Grant rose and dressed. He saw the Dexters coming down the road and he went to the door to welcome them. It seemed at first that the stupor of sleep was not entirely out of his brain. He was silent and had to be primed for details of his adventure. He sat down to eat, but when his meal was half finished, there came bursting out of his soul a flame of emotion, and he put down his food, turned half around from the table, grasped the edges of the board with both hands and cried as a fanatic who sees a vision:
“Oh, those men,–those men–those wonderful, beautiful souls of men I saw!–those strong, fearless. Godlike men!–there in the mine, I mean. Evan Davis, Dick Bowman, Pat McCann, Jamey McPherson, Casper Herdicker, Chopini–all of them; yes, Dennis Hogan, drunk as he is sometimes, and Ira Dooley, who’s been in jail for hold-ups–I don’t care which one–those wonderful men, who risked their lives for others, and Casper Herdicker and Chopini, who gave their lives there under the rock for me. My God, my God!”
His voice thrilled with emotion, and his arms trembled as his hands gripped the table. Those who heard him did not stop him, for they felt that from some uncovered spring in his being a section of personality was gushing forth that never had seen day. He turned quietly to the wondering child, took him from his chair and hugged him closely to a man’s broad chest and stroked the boyish head as the man’s blue eyes filled with tears. Grant sat for a moment looking at the floor, then roughed his red mane with his fingers and said slowly and more quietly, but contentiously:
“I know what you don’t know with all your religion, Mr. Dexter; I know what the Holy Ghost is now. I have seen it. The Holy Ghost is that divine spark in every human soul–however life has smudged it over by circumstance–that rises and envelopes a human creature in a flame of sacrificial love for his kind and makes him joy to die to save others. That’s the Holy Ghost–that’s what is immortal.”
He clenched his great hickory fist and hit the table and lifted his face again, crying: “I saw Dennis Hogan walk up to Death smiling that Irish smile. I saw him standing with a ton of loose dirt hanging over him while he was digging me out! I saw Evan Davis–little, bow-legged Evan Davis–go out into the smoke alone–alone, Mr. Dexter, and they say Evan is a coward–he went out alone and brought back Casper Herdicker’s limp body hugged to his little Welsh breast like a gorilla’s–and saved a man. I saw Dick Bowman do more–when the dirt was dropping from the slipping, working roof into my mouth and eyes, and might have come down in a slide–I lay there and watched Dick working to save me and I heard him order his son to hold a shovel over my face–his own boy.” Grant shuddered and drew the child closer to him, and looked at the group near him with wet eyes. “Ira Dooley and Tom Williams and that little Italian went on their bellies, half dead from the smoke, out into death and brought home three men to safety, and would have died without batting an eye–all three to save one lost man in that passage.” He beat the table again with his fist and cried wildly: “I tell you that’s the Holy Ghost. I know those men may sometimes trick the company if they can. I know Ira Dooley spends lots of good money on ‘the row’; I know Tom gambles off everything he can get his hands on, and that the little Dago probably would have stuck a knife in an enemy over a quarter. But that doesn’t count.”
The young man’s voice rose again. “That is circumstance; much of it is surroundings, either of birth or of this damned place where we are living. If they cheat the company, it is because the company dares them to cheat and cheats them badly. If they steal, it is because they have been taught to steal by the example of big, successful thieves. I’ve had time to think it all out.
“Father–father!” cried Grant, as a new wave of emotion surged in from the outer bourne of his soul, “you once said Dick Bowman sold out the town and took money for voting for the Harvey Improvement bond steal. But what if he did? That was merely circumstance. Dick is a little man who has had to fight for money all his life–just enough money to feed his hungry children. And here came an opportunity to get hold of–what was it?–a hundred dollars–” Amos Adams nodded. “Well, then, a hundred dollars, and it would buy so much, and leading citizens came and told him it was all right–men we have educated with our taxes and our surplus money in universities and colleges. And we haven’t educated Dick; we’ve just taught him to fight–to fight for money, and to think money will do everything in God’s beautiful world. So Dick took it. That was the Dick that man and Harvey and America made, father, but I saw the Dick that God made!” He stopped and cried out passionately, “And some day, some day all the world must know this man–this great-souled, common American–that God made!”
Grant’s voice was low, but a thousand impulses struggled across his features for voice and his eyes were infinitely sad as he gazed at the curly, brown hair of the child in his arms playing with the buttons on his coat.
The minister looked at his wife. She was wet-faced and a-tremble, and had her hands over her eyes. Amos Adams’s old, frank face was troubled. The son turned upon him and cried:
“Father–you’re right when you say character makes happiness. But what do you call it–surroundings–where you live and how you live and what you do for a living–environment! That’s it, that’s the word–environment has lots and lots to do with character. Let the company reduce its dividends by giving the men a chance at decent living conditions, in decent houses and decent streets, and you’ll have another sort of attitude toward the company. Quit cheating them at the store, and you’ll have more honesty in the mines; quit sprinkling sour beer and whiskey on the sawdust in front of the saloons to coax men in who have an appetite, and you’ll have less drinking–but, of course, Sands will have less rents. Let the company obey the law–the company run by men who are pointed out as examples, and there’ll be less lawlessness among the men when trouble comes. Why, Mr. Dexter, do you know as we sat down there in the dark, we counted up five laws which the company broke, any one of which would have prevented the fire, and would have saved ninety lives. Trash in the passage leading to the main shaft delayed notifying the men five minutes–that’s against the law. Torches leaking in the passageway where there should have been electric lights–that’s against the law. Boys–little ten-year-olds working down there–cheap, cheap!” he cried, “and dumping that pine lumber under a dripping torch–that’s against the law. Having no fire drill, and rusty water plugs and hose that doesn’t reach–that’s against the law. A pine partition in an air-chute using it as a shaft–that’s against the law. Yet when trouble comes and these men burn and kill and plunder–we’ll put the miners in jail, and maybe hang them, for doing as they are taught a thousand times a week by the company–risking life for their own gain!”
Grant Adams rose. He ran his great, strong, copper-freckled hands through his fiery hair and stood with face transfigured, as the face of one staring at some phantasm. “Oh, those men–they risked their lives–Chopini and Casper Herdicker gave their lives for me. Father,” he cried, “I am bought with a price. These men risked all and gave all for me. I am theirs. I have no other right to live except as I serve them.” He drew a deep breath; set his jaw and spoke with all the force he could put into a quiet voice: “I am dedicated to men–to those great-souled, brave, kind men whom God has sent here for man to dwarf and ruin. They have bought me. I am theirs.”
The minister put the question in their minds:
“What are you going to do, Grant?”
The fervor that had been dying down returned to Grant Adams’s face.
“My job,” he cried, “is so big I don’t know where to take hold. But I’m not going to bother to tell those men who sweat and stink and suffer under the injustices of men, about the justice of God. I’ve got one thing in me bigger’n a wolf–it’s this: House them–feed them, clothe them, work them–these working people–and pay them as you people of the middle classes are housed and fed and paid and clad, and crime won’t be the recreation of poverty. And the Lord knows the work of the men who toil with their hands is just as valuable to society as preaching and trading and buying and selling and banking and editing and lawing and doctoring, and insuring and school teaching.”
He stood before the kitchen stove, a tall, awkward, bony, wide-shouldered, loose-wired creature in the first raw stage of full-blown manhood. The red muscles of his jaw worked as his emotions rose in him. His hands were the hands of a fanatic–never still.
“I’ve been down into death and I’ve found something about life,” he went on. “Out of the world’s gross earnings we’re paying too much for superintendence, and rent and machines, and not enough for labor. There’s got to be a new shake-up. And I’m going to help. I don’t know where nor how to begin, but some way I’ll find a hold and I’m going to take it.”
He drew in a long breath, looked around and smiled rather a ragged, ugly smile that showed his big teeth, all white and strong but uneven.
“Well, Grant,” said Mrs. Dexter, “you have cut out a big job for yourself.” The young man nodded soberly.
“Well, we’re going to organize ’em, the first thing. We talked that over in the mine when we had nothing else to talk about–but God and our babies.”
In the silence that followed, Amos Adams said: “While you were down there of course I had to do something. So after the paper was out, I got to talking with Lincoln about things. He said you’d get out. Though,” smiled the old man sheepishly and wagged his beard, “Darwin didn’t think you would. But anyway, they all agreed we should do something for the widows.”
“They have a subscription paper at George Brotherton’s store–you know, Grant,” said Mr. Dexter.
“Well–we ought to put in something, father,–all we’ve got, don’t you think?”
“I tried and tried to get her last night to know how she felt about it,” mused Amos. “I’ve borrowed all I can on the office–and it wouldn’t sell for its debts.”
“You ought to keep your home, I think,” put in Mrs. Dexter quickly, who had her husband’s approving nod.
“They told me,” said the father, “that Mary didn’t feel that way about it. I couldn’t get her. But that was the word she sent.”
“Father,” said Grant with the glow in his face that had died for a minute, “let’s take the chance. Let’s check it up to God good and hard. Let’s sell the house and give it all to those who have lost more than we. We can earn the rent, anyway.”
Mrs. Dexter looked significantly at Kenyon.
“No, that shouldn’t count, either,” said Grant stubbornly. “Dick Bowman didn’t let his boy count when I needed help, and when hundreds of orphaned boys and girls and widows need our help, we shouldn’t hold back for Kenyon.”
“Grant,” said the father when the visit was ended and the two were alone, “they say your father has no sense–up town. Maybe I haven’t. I commune with these great minds; maybe they too are shadows. But they come from outside of me.” He ran his fingers through his graying beard and smiled. “Mr. Left brings me things that are deeper and wiser than the things I know–it seems to me. But they all bear one testimony, Grant; they all tell me that it’s the spiritual things and not the material things in this world that count in the long run, and, Grant, boy,” the father reached for his son’s strong hand, “I would rather have seen the son that has come back to me from death, go back to death now, if otherwise I never could have seen him. They told me your mother was with you. And now I know some way she touched your heart out there in the dark–O Grant, boy, while you spoke I saw her in your face–in your face I saw her. Mary–Mary,” cried the weeping old man, “when you sent me back to the war you looked as he looked to-day, and talked so.”
“Father,” said Grant, “I don’t know about your Mr. Left. He doesn’t interest me, as he does you, and as for the others–they may be true or all a mockery, for anything I know. But,” he exclaimed, “I’ve seen God face to face and I can’t rest until I’ve given all I am–everything–everything to help those men!”
Then the three went out into the crisp January air–father and son and little Kenyon bundled to the chin. They walked over the prairies under the sunshine and talked together through the short winter afternoon. At its close they were in the timber where the fallen leaves were beginning to pack against the tree trunks and in the ravines. The child listened as the wind played upon its harp, and the rhythm of the rising and falling tide of harmony set his heart a-flutter, and he squeezed his father’s fingers with delight. A redbird flashing through the gray and brown picture gave him joy, and when it sang far down the ravine where the wind organ seemed to be, the child’s eyes brimmed and he dropped behind the elders a few paces to listen and be alone with his ecstasy. And so in the fading day they walked home. The quail piped for the child, and the prairie chicken pounded his drum, and in the prairie grass the slanting sun painted upon the ripples across the distant, rolling hills many pictures that filled the child’s heart so full that he was still, as one who is awed with a great vision. And it was a great vision that filled his soul: the sunset with its splendors, the twilight hovering in the brown woods, the prairie a-quiver with the caresses of the wind, winter-birds throbbing life and ecstasy into the picture, and above and around it all a great, warm, father’s heart symbolizing the loving kindness of the infinite to the child’s heart.
CHAPTER XVIII
OUR HERO RIDES TO HOUNDS WITH THE PRIMROSE HUNT
Going home from the Adamses that afternoon, John Dexter mused: “Curious–very curious.” Then he added: “Of course this phase will pass. Probably it is gone now. But I am wondering how fundamental this state of mind is, if it will not appear again–at some crisis later in life.”
“His mother,” said Mrs. Dexter, “was a strong, beautiful woman. She builded deep and wide in that boy. And his father is a wise, earnest, kindly man, even if he may be impractical. Why shouldn’t Grant do all that he dreams of doing?”
“Yes,” returned the minister dryly. “But there is life–there are its temptations. He is of the emotional type, and the wrong woman could bend him away from any purpose that he may have now. Then, suppose he does get past the first gate–the gate of his senses–there’s the temptation to be a fool about his talents if he has any–if this gift of tongues we’ve seen to-day should stay with him–he may get the swelled head. And then,” he concluded sadly, “at the end is the greatest temptation of all–the temptation that comes with power to get power for the sake of power.”
The next morning Amos Adams and Grant went in to Market Street to sell their home. Grant seemed a stranger to that busy mart of trade: the week of his absence had taken him so far from it. His eyes were caught by two tall figures, a man and a woman, walking and talking as they crossed the street–the man in a heavy, long, brown ulster, the woman in a flaring red, outer garment. He recognized them as Margaret Fenn and Thomas Van Dorn. They had met entirely by chance, and the meeting was one of perhaps half a dozen chance meetings which they had enjoyed during the winter, and these meetings were so entirely pleasurable that the man was beginning rather vaguely to anticipate them–to hope for another meeting after the last. Grant was in an exalted mood that morning, and the sight of the two walking together struck him only as a symbol and epitome of all that he was going into the world to fight–in the man intellect without moral purpose, in the woman materialism, gross and carnal. The Adamses went the rounds of the real estate dealers trying to sell their home, and in following his vision Grant forgot the two tall figures in the street.
But the two figures that had started Grant’s reverie continued to walk–perhaps a trifle slower than was the wont of either, down Market Street. They walked slowly for two reasons: For her part, she wished to make the most of a parade on Market Street with so grand a person as the Judge of the District Court, and the town’s most distinguished citizen; and for his part, he dawdled because life was going slowly with him in certain quarters: he felt the lack of adventure, and here–at least, she was a stunning figure of a woman! “Yes,” she said, “I heard about them. Henry has just told me that Mr. Brotherton said the Adamses are going to sell their home and give it to the miners’ widows. Isn’t it foolish? It’s all they’ve got in the world, too! Still, really nothing is strange in that family. You know, I boarded with them one winter when I taught the Prospect School. Henry says they want to do something for the laboring people,” she added naïvely.
As she spoke, the man’s eyes wandered over her figure, across her face, and were caught by her eyes that looked at him with something in them entirely irrelevant to the subject that her lips were discussing. His eyes caught up the suggestion of her eyes, and carried it a little further, but he only said: “Yes–queer folks–trying to make a whistle–”
“Out of a pig’s tail,” she laughed. But her eyes thought his eyes had gone just a little too far, so they drooped, and changed the subject.
“Well, I don’t know that I would say exactly a pig’s tail,” he returned, bracketing his words with his most engaging smile, “but I should say out of highly refractory material.”
His eyes in the meantime pried up her eyelids and asked what was wrong with that. And her eyes were coy about it, and would not answer directly.
He went on speaking: “The whole labor trouble, it seems to me, lies in this whistle trade. A smattering of education has made labor dissatisfied. The laboring people are trying to get out of their place, and as a result we have strikes and lawlessness and disrespect for courts, and men going around and making trouble in industry by ‘doing something for labor.’”
“Yes,” she replied, “that is very true.”
But her eyes–her big, liquid, animal eyes were saying, “How handsome you are–you man–you great, strong, masterful man with your brown ulster and brown hat and brown tie, and silken, black mustache.” To which his eyes replied, “And you–you are superb, and such lips and such teeth,” while what he trusted to words was:
“Yes–I believe that the laborer in the mines, for instance, doesn’t care so much about what we would consider hardship. It’s natural to him. It would be hard for us, but he gets used to it! Now, the smelter men in that heat and fumes–they don’t seem to mind it. The agonizing is done largely by these red-mouthed agitators who never did a lick of work in their lives.”
Their elbows touched for a moment as they walked. He drew away politely and her eyes said:
“That’s all right: I didn’t mind that a bit.” But her lips said: “That’s what I tell Mr. Fenn, and, anyway, the work’s got to be done and cultivated people can’t do it. It’s got to be done by the ignorant and coarse and those kind of people.”
His eyes flinched a little at “those kind” of people and she wondered what was wrong. But it was only for a moment that they flinched. Then they told her eyes how fine and desirable she looked, and she replied eyewise with a droop such as the old wolf might have used in replying to Red Riding Hood, “The better to eat you, my child.” Then his voice spoke; his soft, false, vain, mushy voice, and asked casually: “By the way, speaking of Mr. Fenn–how is Henry? I don’t see him much now since he’s quit the law and gone into real estate.”
His eyes asked plainly: Is everything all right in that quarter? Perhaps I might–
“Oh, I guess he’s all right,” and her eyes said: That’s so kind of you, indeed; perhaps you might–
But he went on: “You ought to get him out more–come over some night and we’ll make a hand at whist. Mrs. Van Dorn isn’t much of a player, but like all poor players, she enjoys it.” And the eyes continued: But you and I will have a fine time–now please come–soon–very soon.
“Yes, indeed–I don’t play so well, but we’ll come,” and the eyes answered: That is a fair promise, and I’ll be so happy. Then they flashed quickly: But Mrs. Van Dorn must arrange it. He replied: “I’ll tell Mrs. Van Dorn you like whist, and she and you can arrange the evening.”
Then they parted. He walked into the post office, and she walked on to the Wright & Perry store. But instead of returning to his office, he lounged into Mr. Brotherton’s and sat on a bench in the Amen Corner, biting a cigar, waiting for traffic to clear out. Then he said: “George, how is Henry Fenn doing–really?”
His soft, brown hat was tipped over his eyes and his ulster, unbuttoned, displayed his fine figure, and he was clearly proud of it. Brotherton hesitated while he invoiced a row of books.
“Old trouble?” prompted Judge Van Dorn.
“Old trouble,” echoed Mr. Brotherton–“about every three months since he’s been married; something terrible the last time. But say–there’s a man that’s sorry afterwards, and what he doesn’t buy for her after a round with the joy-water isn’t worth talking about. So far, he’s been able to square her that way–I take it. But say–that’ll wear off, and then–” Mr. Brotherton winked a large, mournful, devilish wink as one who was hanging out a storm flag. Judge Van Dorn twirled his mustache, patted his necktie, jostled his hat and smiled, waiting for further details. Instead, he faced a question:
“Why did Henry quit the law for real estate, Judge–the old trouble?”
Judge Van Dorn echoed, and added: “Folks pretty generally know about it, and they don’t trust their law business in that kind of hands. Poor Henry–poor devil,” sighed the young Judge, and then said: “By the way, George, send up a box of cigars–the kind old Henry likes best, to my house. I’m going to have him and the missus over some evening.”
Mr. Brotherton’s large back was turned when the last phrase was uttered, and Mr. Brotherton made a little significant face at his shelves, and the thought occurred to Mr. Brotherton that Henry Fenn was not the only man whom people pretty generally knew about. After some further talk about Fenn and his affairs, Van Dorn primped a moment before the mirror in the cigar cutter and started for the door.
“By the by, your honor, I forgot about the Mayor’s miners’ relief fund. How is it now?” asked Van Dorn.
“Something past ten thousand here in the county.”
“Any one beat my subscription?” asked Van Dorn.
Brotherton turned around and replied: “Yes–Amos Adams was in here five minutes ago. He has mortgaged his place and so long as he and Grant can’t find kith or kin of Chopini, and Mrs. Herdicker would take nothing–Amos has put $1,500 into the fund. Done it just now–him and Grant.”
The Judge took the paper, looked at the scrawl of the Adamses, and scratching out his subscription, put two thousand where there had been one thousand. He showed it to Brotherton, and added with a smile:
“Who’ll call that–I wonder.”
And wrapping his ulster about him and cocking his hat rakishly, he went with some pride into the street. He was thirty-four years old and was accounted as men go a handsome dog, with a figure just turning from the litheness of youth into a slight rotundity of very early middle age. He carried his shoulders well, walked with a firm, straight gait–perhaps a little too much upon his toes for candor, but, with all, he was a well-groomed animal and he knew it. So he passed Margaret Fenn again on the street, lifted his hat, hunted for her eyes, gave them all the voltage he had, and the smile that he shot at her was left over on his face for half a block down the street. People passing him smiled back and said to one another:
“What a fine, good-natured, big-hearted fellow Tom Van Dorn is!”
And Mr. Van Dorn, not oblivious to the impression he was making, smiled and bowed and bowed and smiled, and hellowed Dick, and howareyoued Hiram, and goodmorninged John, down the street, into his office. There he found his former partner busy with a laudable plan of defending a client. His client happened to be the Wahoo Fuel Company, which was being assailed by the surviving relatives of something like one hundred dead men. So Mr. Calvin was preparing to show that in entering the mine they had assumed the ordinary risks of mining, and that the neglect of their fellow servants was one of those ordinary risks. And as for the boy ten years old being employed in the mines contrary to law, there were some details of a trip to Austria for that boy and his parents, that had to be arranged with the steamship company by wire that very morning. The Judge sat reading the law, oblivious–judicially–to what was going on, and Joseph Calvin fell to work with a will. But what the young Judge, who could ignore Mr. Calvin’s activities, could not help taking judicial notice of in spite of his law books, were those eyes out there on the street. They were indeed beautiful eyes and they said so much, and yet left much to the imagination–and the imagination of Judge Van Dorn was exceedingly nimble in those little matters, and in many other matters besides. Indeed, so nimble was his imagination that if it hadn’t been for the fact that at Judge Van Dorn’s own extra-judicial suggestion, every lawyer in town, excepting Henry Fenn, who had retired from the law practice, had been retained by the Company an hour after the accident, no one knows how many holes might have been found in Mr. Joseph Calvin’s unaided brief.
As the young Judge sat poring over his law book, Captain Morton came in and after the Captain’s usual circumlocution he said:
“What I really wanted to know, Judge, was about a charter. I want to start a company. So I says to myself, Judge Tom, he can just about start me right. He’ll get my company going–what say?” Answering the Judge’s question about the nature of the company, the Captain explained: “You see, I had the agency for the Waverly bicycle here a while back, and I got one of their wheels and was fooling with it like a fellow will on a wet day–what say?” He smiled up at the Judge a self-deprecatory smile, as if to ask him not to mind his foolishness but to listen to his story. “And when I got the blame thing apart, she wouldn’t go together–eh? So I had to kind of give up the agency, and I took a churn that was filling a long-felt want just then. Churns is always my specialty and I forgot all about the bicycle–just like a fellow will–eh? But here a while back I wanted to rig up a gearing for the churn and so I took down the wreck of the old wheel, and dubbing around I worked out a ball-bearing sprocket joint–say, man, she runs just like a feather. And now what I want is a patent for the sprocket and a charter for the company to put it on the market. Henry Fenn’s going to the capital for me to fix up the charter; and then whoopee–the old man’s coming along, eh? When I get that thing on the market, you watch out for me–what say?”