The postmaster was lounging in an open window, cleaning his fingernails with his pocket-knife, as Allison went into the post-office. He rose with some show of animation at sight of the tall, boyish figure in the doorway.
"I got a hired girl for you all right, Mr. Allison," he said, advancing to meet him. "Used to work down to Webb City, in a restaurant, but got tired of it—hours too hard. She's a good cook, and she knows how to get things on the table so they look real nice—I knew that would mean considerable to you folks."
He went on to dwell at length upon the girl's good points, becoming more nervously demonstrative in his praise as he found that Allison's face reflected none of his enthusiasm, but remained unexpectedly impassive and non-committal.
Allison interrupted at the first opportunity.
"You have been very kind, Mr. Barbour," he said, with impersonal civility. "Would you be so good as to get me my mail?"
He took the letters which the man handed him and walked out without giving him another glance.
Just outside of the door he met Jim Brown, man-of-all-work at the station. Allison himself was station agent. Allison looked at Jim as he passed with such a cold, unswerving gaze that in spite of himself the other dropped his eyes. Jim had been present at the interview between Billings and Allison that morning; Allison knew that he was coming now to tell the postmaster about it. The young man set his lips hard at the thought of some of the things he had done during the last two weeks, when he had been full of glad confidence in himself and in this invention of his—this brake which Billings had told him an hour ago was not worth the stuff of which it was made. The recountal of his performance would doubtless afford much entertainment to the pair in the post-office. Just yesterday he had asked the postmaster to find for him, if possible, a capable maid-servant, and had said, without thinking anything in particular about it, that he would pay a satisfactory girl five dollars a week. Five dollars a week—it had not seemed much to him; he had been amused by Barbour's evident astonishment. To-day he saw more reason in it.... Then there was that perfume for Gertrude—he should have to countermand his order for that. He had no choice in the matter, he told himself, with bitter resentment that a paltry nine dollars should mean so much to him. In spite of the fact that he had come to this decision before he reached the drug store, he did not go in, but walked past with his head in the air, looking neither to right nor to left. He felt as though every one must already know of the morning's experience; and he was fearful of meeting eyes alight with cynical understanding.
The postmaster and Jim watched the young man from the post-office door as he made his way up the one hilly street of the little town. The soldierly precision of his carriage and gait, together with a certain air of distinction about his clothes, made him seem singularly out of keeping with all about him—the narrow, stony road, the straggling white houses on each side of it, the unkempt yards, the neglected trees, the dilapidated sidewalks half hidden by an amazing growth of dog-fennel.
"You'd know somep'n had gone wrong by the way he had his head reared back, wouldn't you?" Jim asked with a smile on his dark face.
He had just finished telling Barbour of what had happened that morning. Several days before,