“What do you know of it, Craney?”
“I went there with Abe Dalrimple,” he says, “and left him there planting lobster pots. That wouldn't do for me. None of it in mine. Abe's got no more ambition than to dodge the next kettle Mrs. Dalrimple throws at him, but me, I'm ambitious, I got to spread out. I'm a romantic man, Tommy. That's my secret. That's the key of me. Give me largeness. Give me space for my talents. What do you want with Greenough? You stay with me and I'll show you who's the natural lord of all lands that's fertile and foolish. Ain't I showed you what I could do in a small way? Why, I only just began. That's nothing, I'm a soarer, Tommy, I've got visions.”
I took a look at his one hard bright eye, and thought him over, and I thought:
“You've got 'em all right, but they're slippery,” and I says:
“Did you hear news of any one in Greenough?”
“Give 'em a name.”
“Happen it might be the name of Pemberton,” I says. “Madge Pemberton.”
“There was a man in Adrian named Andrew McCulloch,” he says, “that married a girl named Pemberton from Greenough. Aye, I recollect, Pemberton's was a hotel.”
“Madge Pemberton?”
“It was that name.”