“Has Captain Tolliver infected you?” inquired Alice. “He told us the same thing, with less of tropes and figures.”
“On any still morning,” said Jim, “you can hear the wheels go round in the Captain’s head; but his instinct for real-estate conditions is as accurate as a pocket-gopher’s. The Captain, in a hysterical sort of way, is right: I consider that a cinch. Good-night, friends, and pleasant dreams. I expect to see you at breakfast; but if I shouldn’t, Al, you’ll come aboard at nine, won’t you, and help run up the Jolly Roger? I think I smell pieces-of-eight in the air! And, by the way, Miss Trescott says for me to assure you that her vertigo, which she had for the first time in her life, is gone, and she never felt better.”
As Mr. Elkins passed from our parlor, he let in a bell-boy with the card of Mr. Clifford Giddings, representing the Lattimore Morning Herald.
“See him down in the lobby,” said Alice.
“I want a story,” said he as we met, “on the city and its future. The Herald readers will be glad of anything from Mr. Barslow, whose coming they have so long looked forward to, as intimately connected with the city’s development.”
“My dear sir,” I replied, somewhat astonished at the importance which he was pleased to attach to my arrival, “abstractly, my removal to Lattimore is my best testimony on that; concretely, I ought to ask information of you.”
We sat down in a corner of the lobby, our chairs side by side, facing opposite ways. He lighted a cigar, and gave me one. In looks he was young; in behavior he had the self-possession and poise of maturity. He wore a long mackintosh which sparkled with mist. His slouch hat looked new and was carefully dinted. His dress was almost natty in an unconventional way, and his manners accorded with his garb. He acted as if for years we had casually met daily. His tone and attitude evinced respect, was entirely free from presumption, equally devoid of reserve, carried with it no hint of familiarity, but assumed a perfect understanding. The barrier which usually keeps strangers apart he neither broke down, which must have been offensive, nor overleaped, which would have been presumptuous. He covered it with that demeanor of his, and together we sat down upon it.
“I thought the Herald was an evening paper,” said I.
“It was, in the days of yore,” he replied; “but Mr. Elkins happened to see me in Chicago one day, and advised me to come out and look the old thing over with a view to purchasing the plant. You observe the result. As fellow immigrants, I hope there will be a bond of sympathy between us. You think, of course, that Lattimore is a coming city?”
“Yes.”