to table
with Mandy and me. Mandy's cookin' is considered some better 'n at the
hotel."

"You refuse?"

"I was wonderin'," said Scattergood, "if you had any notion if I could
buy the Goodhue timber reasonable?"

"Eh?" said Mr. Castle, startled. "The Goodhue timber?"

"Back of Tupper Falls."

"Who told--" Mr. Castle snapped his teeth together sharply.

"Leetle bird," said Scattergood. "Dinner's ready."

"There might come a time when you'd be mighty glad to sell for less than
I'm offering."

"Once there was a boy," said Scattergood, "and he up and says to another
boy, 'I kin lick you,' The story come to me that the boy sort of
overestimated his weight.'"

"I'm not threatening you," said Castle.

"It's a privilege I don't deny to nobody.... Say, Mr. Castle, be you
goin' into this deal to make money or to take somebody's scalp?"

"Baines," said Mr. Castle, "I'll buy you the best box of cigars in
Boston if you'll tell me where you get your information."

"Hatch it," said Scattergood, gravely. "Jest set patient onto the egg,
and perty soon the shell busts and there stands the information all
fluffy and wabbly and ready to grow up into a chicken if it's used
right."

"Will you answer a fair question?"

"If our idees of the fairness of it agrees with one another."

"Has McKettrick got to you first?"

It was the information Scattergood wanted, but his dumplinglike face
showed no sign of satisfaction. As a matter of fact, he did not know who
McKettrick was--but he could find out. "Don't seem to recall any
conversation with him," he said, cautiously, leaving Castle to believe
what he desired--and Castle believed.

"He was keeping his plans almighty dark. I don't understand his spilling
them to you. It cost _me_ money to find out."

"Dinner's waitin'," said Scattergood.

"Did he offer to buy your road?"

"If he did," said Scattergood, "it didn't come to nothin'."

It will be observed that Scattergood had obtained important information,
though affording none, and in addition had surrounded himself with a
haze through which President Castle was unable to see clearly. Castle
knew less after the interview than he had known when he came;
Scattergood had discovered all he hoped to discover.

Johnnie Bones came home next noon and reported to Scattergood that he
had been partially successful.

"I couldn't get all of that flat," he said. "Somebody's been buying on
the quiet. Three strips from the river to the