"So? Did you succeed in closing a bargain with him?"
"Yes. He has consented to let it go."
"You don't say so! I would hardly have believed it. Now, I don't want to be curious nor anything; but would you mind telling me what you had to pay for it?"
"Nothing. He gave it to us."
"He—what?"
"He gave it to us to be used as a flag-staff on the grounds of the public school at Chestnut Hill."
"You don't mean that he gave you that wonderful spruce that stands down in the corner of his swamp; the one Morrissey and Campbell were up looking at yesterday?"
"I believe that is the one."
"Why, colonel, that spruce was the apple of his eye. If I've heard him brag that tree up once, I've heard him brag it up fifty times. He never gave away anything in his life before. What's come over the old man, anyway?"
"Well, when he learned that I had donated the flag, he declared that he would donate the staff. I suppose he didn't want to be outdone in the matter of patriotism."