"Well, then, what for did old Adam Ward's daughter go to see him just like Mag an' me did?"
"I don't know nothin' about that," growled Sam Whaley, "but I can tell you kids one thing. You're a-goin' to stay out of that there automobile of hers. You let me catch you takin' up with such as Adam Ward's daughter and I'll teach you somethin' you won't fergit."
* * * * *
The cigar-store philosopher remarked casually to the chief of police, "This here savior of the people, Jake Vodell, that's recently descended upon us, is gatherin' to himself a choice bunch of disciples—I'll tell the world."
"What do you know about it?" demanded the officer of the law.
The philosopher grinned. "Oh, they most of them smoke or chew, the same as your cops. Vodell himself smokes your brand. Have one on me chief."
CHAPTER V
ADAM WARD'S ESTATE
In spite of that smile of mingled admiration, contempt and envy, with which the people always accompanied any mention of Adam Ward, Millsburgh took no little pride in the dominant Mill owner's achievements. In particular, was the Ward home, most pretentious of all the imposing estates on the hillside, an object of never-failing interest and conversational speculation. "Adam Ward's castle," the people called it, smiling. And no visiting stranger of any importance whatever could escape being driven past that glaring architectural monstrosity which stood so boldly on its most conspicuous hillside elevation and proclaimed so defiantly to all the world its owner's material prosperity.
But the sight-seers always viewed the "castle" and the "palatial grounds" (the Millsburgh Clarion, in a special Sunday article for which Adam paid, so described the place) through a strong, ornamental iron fence, with a more than ornamental gate guarded by massive stone columns. Only when the visiting strangers were of sufficient importance in the owner's eyes were they permitted to pass the conspicuous PRIVATE PROPERTY, NO ADMITTANCE sign at the entrance. As the cigar-stand philosopher explained, Adam Ward did not propose to give anything away.