"His family? Is he married? Has he a wife and children?"
"Yes."
"Yet he goes slam-banging around with a lot of young girls into all sorts of doubtful places?"
"Oh, I've heard something about that," said Giles. "Well, you wouldn't have them in charge of a bachelor, would you?"
"What's he farming for?" asked Abner, left behind with Medora.
"Sentiment," she replied. "He was born down there, and has never wanted to let the old place go. Do you think any the worse of him for that?"
Whyland had come to fetch the men and to show them his model farm. They spent the forenoon in going over this expensive place. Bond gave vent to all the "oh's" and "ah's" that indicate the perfect visitor. Abner took their host's various amateurish doings in glum silence. It was all very well to indulge in these costly contraptions as a pastime, but if the man had to get his actual living from the soil where would he be? Almost anybody could stand on two legs. How many on one?
"Do you make it pay?" Abner asked bluntly.
"Pay? I'm a by-word all over the county. Half the town lives on my lack of 'gumption.'"
"H'm," said Abner darkly. He was as far as ever from hitting it off with this smiling, dapper product of artificial city conditions.