“I wouldn’t let it get too painful, Wallie. You know they call Cameron ‘Curious Jim’—”
“There you go—blasting my fair illusions in the bud. For an out-and-out, cold-blooded vivisectionist of ideals, you’re the heavy-weight champion of the scalpel, Davy—and you used to write poetry. Oh, Pegasus and autos!”
“Poetry!” exclaimed Swickey.
“Steeped in guilt,” replied Bascomb, nodding toward David. “He wrote the blankest kind of blank verse, and the most solemnly salubrious sonnets, and the loveliest lyrics! Remember that Eugene Fielder you did about the little boy and his pup?”
“If you had your glasses on, Walt, I’d—” David made a playfully threatening gesture.
“No, you wouldn’t, Davy dear, for I could see you coming—and I’d run. Besides, you’d have to drop that string of trout first.”
After supper David went to his cabin to write some letters. Bascomb stayed behind to chat with Avery about certain details of the work that was soon to be begun in the Timberland Valley.
“I reckon,” said Avery, seating himself on the edge of the porch, “I reckon they’s no sense in hirin’ men fur the job till the new railrud gets to runnin’. Howcome they’s some swampin’ to be did—cuttin’ a road from the creek to the sidin’, and we kin git Jim, and a couple of men from Tramworth, and me, and go at it most any time now. Jim’s comin’ around all right, and I calc’late to git him to do the teamin’ later on. ’Course you and Dave’ll boss the job. Now, about one thing: Dave says we won’t make nothin’ the fust year. Now, I ain’t worryin’ about thet. What I’m thinkin’ of is who’s goin’ to look after things at the other end. Somebody’s got to do the sellin’ and take care of the money when it do git to comin’ in, and—”
“Davy and I talked it over,” interrupted Bascomb. “He thinks I’d better be back in town when things get to running here. He will probably speak to you about it.”
“I was jest a-goin’ to say suthin’ about it m’self, to Dave. Guess I’ll go over and see him now. Comin’ over?”