Later, when the two sages were obliviously engrossed in a heated battle as to whether Berlioz or Beethoven had exposited in their compositions the deeper intellect, Graham managed his escape. Clearly, his goal was to find his hostess again. But she had joined two of the girls in the whispering, giggling seclusiveness of one of the big chairs, and, most of the company being deep in bridge, Graham found himself drifted into a group composed of Dick Forrest, Mr. Wombold, Dar Hyal, and the correspondent of the Breeders’ Gazette.
“I’m sorry you won’t be able to run over with me,” Dick was saying to the correspondent. “It would mean only one more day. I’ll take you tomorrow.”
“Sorry,” was the reply. “But I must make Santa Rosa. Burbank has promised me practically a whole morning, and you know what that means. Yet I know the Gazette would be glad for an account of the experiment. Can’t you outline it?—briefly, just briefly? Here’s Mr. Graham. It will interest him, I am sure.”
“More water-works?” Graham queried.
“No; an asinine attempt to make good farmers out of hopelessly poor ones,” Mr. Wombold answered. “I contend that any farmer to-day who has no land of his own, proves by his lack of it that he is an inefficient farmer.”
“On the contrary,” spoke up Dar Hyal, weaving his slender Asiatic fingers in the air to emphasize his remarks. “Quite on the contrary. Times have changed. Efficiency no longer implies the possession of capital. It is a splendid experiment, an heroic experiment. And it will succeed.”
“What is it, Dick?” Graham urged. “Tell us.”
“Oh, nothing, just a white chip on the table,” Forrest answered lightly. “Most likely it will never come to anything, although just the same I have my hopes—”
“A white chip!” Wombold broke in. “Five thousand acres of prime valley land, all for a lot of failures to batten on, to farm, if you please, on salary, with food thrown in!”
“The food that is grown on the land only,” Dick corrected. “Now I will have to put it straight. I’ve set aside five thousand acres midway between here and the Sacramento River.”