"General, I've been to West Virginia and started the plant, and we're going to give Hail Columbia to our competitors."
He looked at me attentively, and a sly twinkle appeared in his little watery grey eyes, which were sunk deep in the bluish and swollen sockets.
"Do you feel yourself getting big, Ben?" he enquired, with a chuckle.
I shook my head. "Not yet, but it's a fair risk and a good chance to make a big business."
"Well, you're right, I suppose, and if you ain't you'll find out before long. What's luck, after all, but the thing that enables a man to see a long way ahead?"
He settled himself under his fur rug, flicked the reins over the old grey horse, and we drove slowly up Main Street behind a street car.
"I don't know about luck, General, but I'm going to win out if hard pushing can do it."
"It can do 'most anything if you only push hard, enough. But you talk as if you were in love, Ben, I've said the same thing a hundred times in my day, I reckon."
I blushed furiously, and then turning my face from him, stared at a group of children upon the sidewalk.
"Whom could I marry, General?" I asked. "You know well enough that a woman in your class wouldn't marry a man in mine—unless—"