"Yes? Well—"
"Yes, well, what? Why don't you say something?"
"I will. I'll say that you're irritable to-day. You showed it your confab with your overseer, who is a very worthy man with an exaggerated notion of the work a field hand ought to do in a day. You showed it at breakfast, when you complained because the buckwheat cakes didn't make their appearance precisely on time. Is there anything else you'd like me to say?"
"Yes. What am I to do in this matter, by way of bringing about a tolerable situation?"
"Why, nothing, of course. I could have told you that this morning, but you wouldn't have believed it then. Now that you've exhausted your literary capacity and most of the Wanalah stationery in a futile effort to do the impossible, it may be worth my while to say to you that in a case of this kind there is nothing you can do except await events with due respect for your own dignity. Shut up your desk and send for some horses. Let's have a gallop before dinner time. And by the way, I'd like to ride that young iron gray mare you've got in your stables. She impresses me so favorably that I should buy her if she belonged to anybody who would sell."
"Why, when did you inspect her, Jack? I hadn't a thought—"
"I know you hadn't, but while you've been busy at your desk, trying to accomplish the impossible, I've been down to the stables and had the mare out for inspection. She's a beauty and, so far as I know the points of a horse, she has all of them that are worth while. She's a Red Eye of course?"
"Yes—Red Eye and Nina. She's Nina's own colt. I'll tell you what I'll do, Jack. If you'll stay with me, making Wanalah your home till this confounded election is over,—just to keep me sane, you know,—the mare shall be yours, as a souvenir of your safe return from the Rocky Mountains."
"Done!" exclaimed Jack. "But if I have to club you by way of keeping you sane, you won't too greatly mind, will you?"
"Not in the least. It's the clubbing I want. Really, Jack, I often think I haven't quite grown up and never shall. I have my full complement of inches, of course, and I can be dignified upon occasion, but when it comes to emotional things, somehow—"