"Yes, and walk while the rest ride," asserted Jack, tersely, "you know the old deacon's advice to his son just starting out in life,—'Make money, my son, honestly if you can, but make it!'"
"All very good," replied Winn, "but old. I doubt whether you can change my fool ideas, if you talk till doomsday; but you may mellow them. And that reminds me of another fool thing I've done. I bought the sole right, title, and deed of the Rockhaven Granite Company's quarry a few weeks ago."
"The wisest buy you ever made, my boy," answered Jack, quickly; "and now if you will hustle around and get some men to put money into a new company, you will be in luck once more." Then, as another idea came to this quick-witted man of the world, he added, "What's the matter with Jess Hutton and all the money we made for him?"
But Winn was silent, while a tide of memory swept over his feelings. And in it was Mona, with her tender love, and Jess, with the heart and hand he offered at parting, and all the good people on the island whom Winn knew to be his friends. And as all the possibilities Rockhaven contained came back to him, now it suddenly dawned upon him that Jack Nickerson had named him rightly.
"I see I've put you to sleep," continued Jack, after the long pause while he watched Winn, "and now I'll wake you up. I saw Ethel Sherman in a box at the theatre last night, with our mutual friend, Simmons. He must have reached his second childhood!"
Then Winn did wake up.
And more than that, a few unconsidered trifles connected with this same vivacious Ethel assumed index shape. He recalled that she had for the past six weeks specified the evenings she would be at home to him, for a week ahead. He also recalled that a plenitude of choicest flowers had always graced her parlor lately.
"And why not," he answered coolly, "old Simmons is a widower worth a million, has just built an elegant new residence of the granite we quarried, and Ethel's in the market. I think she shows good sense—at least your kind of good sense, Jack."
"Yes, and of all experienced people," asserted Nickerson, defiantly. "Sentiment is a fine thing in books or on the stage, it may influence silly girls or callow boys, but it's out of date in this age."
And Winn, recalling his own early episode with Ethel, and the lesson in life that for weeks had been forced upon him, was more than half inclined to believe his friend to be right.