The Major was skeptical. “Dream on, fair son!” he said. “It’s lucky for us that you’re only dreaming; because if people go to moving that far, real estate values in the old residence part of town are going to be stretched pretty thin.”
“I’m afraid so,” Eugene assented. “Unless you keep things so bright and clean that the old section will stay more attractive than the new ones.”
“Not very likely! How are things going to be kept ‘bright and clean’ with soft coal, and our kind of city government?”
“They aren’t,” Eugene replied quickly. “There’s no hope of it, and already the boarding-house is marching up National Avenue. There are two in the next block below here, and there are a dozen in the half-mile below that. My relatives, the Sharons, have sold their house and are building in the country—at least, they call it ‘the country.’ It will be city in two or three years.”
“Good gracious!” the Major exclaimed, affecting dismay. “So your little shops are going to ruin all your old friends, Eugene!”
“Unless my old friends take warning in time, or abolish smoke and get a new kind of city government. I should say the best chance is to take warning.”
“Well, well!” the Major laughed. “You have enough faith in miracles, Eugene—granting that trolleys and bicycles and automobiles are miracles. So you think they’re to change the face of the land, do you?”
“They’re already doing it, Major; and it can’t be stopped. Automobiles—”
At this point he was interrupted. George was the interrupter. He had said nothing since entering the dining room, but now he spoke in a loud and peremptory voice, using the tone of one in authority who checks idle prattle and settles a matter forever.
“Automobiles are a useless nuisance,” he said.