“We go down on our knees, metaphorically speaking, and plead with an outraged and righteously indignant Uncle William,” Tregarvon laughed; and when the old negro made his next appearance in the dining-room, the Philadelphian did it so skilfully that Merkley was provided for at a side table in the hall; not of grace, as certain mumblings from the cook-house proved, but because the master desired it.
“That settles our status,” said Carfax, with the cherubic smile, “at least down to Rucker, the mechanician. I wonder what has become of him?”
“If he is the same mechanical barbarian you had last year, he’ll not go hungry,” Tregarvon ventured; and then, with the assurance of a tried friend: “Whatever possessed you to come down here en suite, Poictiers? Did I give you the impression that the Ocoee headquarters was a summer-resort hotel?”
Carfax laughed joyously. “You certainly did not. But I was tired of Lenox, and it was too early for the shooting. Moreover, you said you wanted your car, and the fit took me to drive it. That accounts for Rucker; and I suppose I account for poor Merkley. He is due to have the time of his gay young life—don’t you think?—with Uncle William and the elemental environment? But tell me more about your affair. What have you been letting yourself in for, down here in the Southern backwoods?”
Uncle William had removed the cloth, and had put a tobacco-jar and two pipes on the table.
“It is the best we can do, even for you,” said Tregarvon, indicating the tobacco aftermath apologetically. “Nobody has ever seen a bottle of wine in Coalville, and the whiskey of the country isn’t fit to drink.” Then he plunged abruptly into the story of the Ocoee, so far as he knew it, giving the last-resort reasons why he was trying to make a family windbreak of it, and Carfax heard him through patiently.
“Then it sums itself up about like this: You haven’t anything at present, and if you succeed in getting anything, the other fellows will nab it,” he said, when Tregarvon had finished. “Is that about the size of it?”
“You have surrounded it completely. Only I am eliminating the ‘if.’ I mean to get something, and I don’t mean to let the other fellows get away with it.”
“Any move made yet?” queried Carfax, between delicate little puffs at the pipe of hospitality.
“Not visibly. The trust people will scarcely move in the matter until after I have proved my first proposition, which is that the two veins of coal become one farther back in the mountain. But the McNabbs may not wait that long.”