The two men spoke as one; the negative was strongly emphatic.
"Mr. Van Ostend," Octavius Buzzby spoke with suppressed excitement, "if I may make bold, who has lived here on this place and known its owners for forty years, to give you a piece of advice, I'd like to give it."
"I want all I can get, Mr. Buzzby; it will help me to see my way in this matter."
"Then I'm going to ask you to let bygones be bygones, and not say one word to Mr. Googe about this property. He begun seven years ago in the sheds and has worked his way up to foreman this last year, and if you was to propose to him what you have to us, it would rake up the past, sir—a past that's now in its grave, thank God! Champney—I ask your pardon—Mr. Googe wouldn't touch a penny of it more 'n he'd touch carrion. I know this; nor he wouldn't have his boy touch it either. I ain't saying he don't appreciate the good money does, for he's told me so; but for himself—well, sir, I think you know what I mean: he's through with what is just money. He's a man, is Champney Googe, and he's living his life in a way that makes the almighty dollar look pretty small in comparison with it—Father Honoré, you know this as well as I do."
The priest nodded gravely in the affirmative.
"Tell me something of his life, Father Honoré," said Mr. Van Ostend; "you know the degree of respect I have always had for him ever since he took his punishment like a man—and you and I were both on the wrong track," he added with a meaning smile.
"I don't quite know what to say," replied his friend. "It isn't anything I can point to and say he has done this or that, because he gets beneath the surface, as you might say, and works there. But I do know that where there is an element of strife among the men, there you will find him as peacemaker—he has a wonderful way with them, but it is indefinable. We don't know all he does, for he never speaks of it, only every once in a while something leaks out. I know that where there is a sickbed and a quarryman on it, there you will find Champney Googe as watcher after his day's work—and tender in his ministrations as a woman. I know that when sickness continues and the family are dependent on the fund, Champney Googe works many a night overtime and gives his extra pay to help out. I know, too, that when a strike threatens, he, who is now in the union because he is convinced he can help best there, is the balance-wheel, and prevents radical unreason and its results. There's trouble brewing there now—about the automatic bush hammer—"
"I have heard of it."
"—And Jim McCann is proving intractable. Mr. Googe is at work with him, and hopes to bring him round to a just point of view. And I know, moreover, that when there is a crime committed and a criminal to be dealt with, that criminal finds in the new foreman of Shed Number Two a friend who, without condoning the crime, stands by him as a human being. I know that out of his own deep experience he is able to reach out to other men in need, as few can. In all this his wife is his helpmate, his mother his inspiration.—What more can I say?"
"Nothing," said Henry Van Ostend gravely. "He has two children I hear—a boy and a girl. I should like to see her who was the little Aileen of twenty years ago."