cigarette. A few years later, competition came like a whirlwind, but in
the beginning the Treadwell brand held the market alone, and in those
few years Cyrus's fortune was made.

"Heard from George lately?" he inquired, when they had traversed,
accompanied by their long and narrow shadows, another couple of blocks.
The tobacco trade had always been for him merely a single pawn in the
splendid game he was playing, but he had suspected recently that James
felt something approaching a sentiment for the Magnolia cigarette, and
true to the Treadwell scorn of romance, he was forever trying to trick
him into an admission of guilt.

"Not since that letter I showed you a month ago," answered James. "Too
much competition, that's the story everywhere. They are flooding the
market with cigarettes, and if it wasn't for the way the Magnolia holds
on, we'd be swamped in little or no time."

"Well, I reckon the Claypole would pull us through," commented Cyrus.
The Claypole was an old brand of plug tobacco with which the first
Treadwell factory had started. "But you're right about competition. It's
got to stop or we'll be driven clean out of the business."

He drew out his latchkey as he spoke, for they had reached the corner of
Bolingbroke Street, and the small dingy house in which they lived was
only a few doors away. As they passed between the two blossoming
oleanders in green tubs on the sidewalk, James glanced up at the flat
square roof, and observed doubtfully, "You'll be getting out of this old
place before long now, I reckon."

"Oh, someday, someday," answered Cyrus. "There'll be time enough when
the market settles and we can see where the money is coming from."

Once every year, in the spring, James asked his father this question,
and once every year he received exactly the same answer. In his mind,
Cyrus was always putting off the day when he should move into a larger
house, for though he got richer every week, he never seemed to get quite
rich enough to commit himself to any definite change in his
circumstances. Of course, in the nature of things, he knew that he ought
to have left Bolingbroke Street long ago; there was hardly a family
still living there with whom his daughter associated, and she complained
daily of having to pass saloons and barber shops whenever she went out
of doors. But the truth was that in spite of his answer to James's
annual question, neither of them wanted to move away from the old home,
and