kept himself from looking at these things. He
rolled his head about on his shoulders to take in the character of the
room, and said to his son, "You didn't change the woodwork, after all."

"No; the architect thought we had better let it be, unless we meant to
change the whole place. He liked its being old-fashioned."

"I hope you feel comfortable here, Mr. March," the old man said, bringing
his eyes to bear upon him again after their tour of inspection.

"Too comfortable for a working-man," said March, and he thought that this
remark must bring them to some talk about his work, but the proprietor
only smiled again.

"I guess I sha'n't lose much on this house," he returned, as if musing
aloud. "This down-town property is coming up. Business is getting in on
all these side streets. I thought I paid a pretty good price for it,
too." He went on to talk of real estate, and March began to feel a
certain resentment at his continued avoidance of the only topic in which
they could really have a common interest. "You live down this way
somewhere, don't you?" the old man concluded.

"Yes. I wished to be near my work." March was vexed with himself for
having recurred to it; but afterward he was not sure but Dryfoos shared
his own diffidence in the matter, and was waiting for him to bring it
openly into the talk. At times he seemed wary and masterful, and then
March felt that he was being examined and tested; at others so simple
that March might well have fancied that he needed encouragement, and
desired it. He talked of his wife and daughters in a way that invited
March to say friendly things of his family, which appeared to give the
old man first an undue pleasure and then a final distrust. At moments he
turned, with an effect of finding relief in it, to his son and spoke to
him across March of matters which he was unacquainted with; he did not
seem aware that this was rude, but the young man must have felt it so; he
always brought the conversation back, and once at some cost to himself
when his father made it personal.

"I want to make a regular New York business man out of that fellow," he
said to March, pointing at Conrad with his stick. "You s'pose I'm ever
going to do it?"

"Well, I don't know," said March, trying to fall in with the joke. "Do
you mean nothing but a business man?"

The old man laughed at whatever latent meaning he fancied in this, and
said: "You think he would be a little too much for me there? Well,