"Of course not," mused John.
The president showed two cigars. "Would you like to go to the smoking-car?"
March glanced toward his mother. She was looking at her two kinsmen with such sweet sprightliness that he had trouble to make her see his uplifted cigar. She met his parting smile with a gleam of terror and distrust, but he shook his head and reddened as Hamlet winked at Lazarus.
"It means some girl," observed one of the Blackland matrons.
"Well, I hope it does," responded the other.
"Wait," said the giver of the cigar, "we're stopping for wood and water. It'll be safer to go round this front coach than through it." John thought it would not, but yielded.
"Now, Mr. March," they stood near the water-tank—"if you could persuade your mother to give you full control, and let you get a few strong men to go in with you—see? They could make you—well—secretary!—with a salary; for, of course, you'd have to go into the thing, hot, yourself. You'd have to push like smoke!"
"Of course," said John, squaring his handsome figure; as if he always went in hot, and as if smoke was the very thing he had pushed like, for years.
"I shouldn't wonder if you and I"—Gamble began again, but the train started, they took the smoker and found themselves with Halliday, Shotwell, Proudfit, and a huge Englishman, round whom the other three were laughing.