While the worthy mayor was uttering his descriptive remarks Olcott bent his head and squinted past the thick shield of limbs and leaves. He saw that the door of the house, which was closed, somehow had the look of about always being closed, and that most of the windows were barred with thick shutters.
“Appears rather deserted, doesn't it?” said the newcomer, striving to show a proper appreciation of the courtesy that was being visited upon him. “There isn't any one living there at present, is there?”
“Sure there is,” said Mayor McGlynn. “Old Mr. Cecilius Jacob Van Nicht, 4th, who's the present head of the family, and his two old-maid sisters, Miss Rachael and Miss Harriet—they all live there together. Miss Rachael is considerably older than Miss Harriet, but they're both regular old maids—guess they always will be. The brother never married, either—couldn't find anybody good enough to share the name, I suppose. Anyhow he's never married. And besides I guess it keeps him pretty busy living up to the job of being the head of the oldest family in this end of the state. That's about all he ever has done.”
“Then he isn't in any regular business or any profession?”
“Business!” Mayor McGlynn snorted. “I should say not! All any one of the Van Nichts has ever done since anybody can remember was just to keep on being a Van Nicht and upholding the traditions and the honours of the Van Nichts—and this one is like all his breed. The poorer he gets the more pompous and the more important acting he gets—that's the funny part of it.”
“Apparently not a very lucrative calling, judging by the general aspect of the ancestral manor,” said Olcott, who was beginning now to be interested. “How do they manage to live?”
“Lord knows,” said the mayor. “How do the sparrows manage to live? I guess there're times when they need a load of coal and a market basket full of victuals to help tide 'em over a hard spell, but naturally nobody would dare to offer to help them. They're proud as Lucifer themselves, and the town is kind of proud of 'em. They're institutions with us, as you might say.”
McGlynn, who, as Olcott was to learn later, was a product of new industrial and new political conditions in the community, spoke with the half-begrudged admiration which the self-made so often have for the ancestor-made.
“We ain't got so very many of the real aristocrats in this section any more, what with all this new blood pouring in since our boom started up; and even if they are as poor as Job's turkey, these Van Nichts still count for a good deal round here. Money ain't everything anyway, is it?... Well, Mr. Olcott, if you've seen enough here, we'll turn round and go see something else.” He addressed his chauffeur: “Jim, suppose you take us by the new hosiery mills next. I want Mr. Olcott to see one of the most prosperous manufacturing plants in the state. Employs nine hundred hands, Mr. Olcott, and hasn't been in operation but a little more than three years. That's the way this town is humping itself. You didn't make any mistake, coming here.”
As the car swung about, Olcott gave the Van Nicht place a backward scrutiny over his shoulder and was impressed by its appearance into saying this: