"The Gotown Metropolitan Academy of Music will be ready for inauguration by a company of distinguished actors—all stars, more or less—from the principal theatres of the metropolis—next Saturday night," replied Big Ed in a grandiloquent outburst.
"You don't mean it, Ed?" said the Weston landlord, somewhat amazed at the suggestion.
"Can't be did," said Handy.
"Can't, eh?" remarked McGowan, with a smile of contempt on his cheery face. "You don't know Gotown, my friend. Come here," he continued, as he rose from his chair and moved toward the door and motioned his friends to follow. "It is purty dark outside, but no matter about that. Look out yonder and tell me what you see?"
"Not much of anything now, but the faint outlines of a bunch of houses, cranes, derricks, and things, and a lot of lights," replied Handy.
"Right you are in what you say. Now listen to me and hear what I have to say. Had you stood on this same spot you are now standing on, a year since, and in broad daylight, the only thing you'd have seen, barrin' the ground, would be the cattle in the field—and darned few of them, at that—and a few houses here and there, miles apart. A year ago, my friend, lacking a few days, Gotown didn't exist. Isn't what I'm tellin' him true, Myles?" said the speaker, appealing for corroboration of his statement to one who was evidently a steady patron of the McGowan establishment, and who was about to enter.
"That's about the size of the truth of it. A year ago, come next Saturday night, we christened her, all right, all right."
"What's that you said?" asked Handy, suddenly brightening up. "A year ago, did you say? Christopher Columbus! if we only had a place to show in we could celebrate the centennial anniversary of Gotown."
His hearers burst into laughter, and Big Ed concluded that the way Handy took in the situation was worthy of a treat on the house, to which the newcomer, Myles O'Hara, was specially invited.
"Say, Myles," inquired the boss, as they stood in front of the bar, "how long will it take to finish the Academy?"