it,
too."

Jacobs' face was the face of a resolute man with whom law was law. Then
the two talked of other things as they finished their meal.

John Jacobs was city bred, a merchant by instinct, a Jew in religion, and
a strictly honest and exacting business man. Asher Aydelot had been a
country boy and was by choice a farmer. He was a Protestant of the
Methodist persuasion. It must have been his business integrity that first
attracted Jacobs to him. Jacobs was a timid man, and no one else in
Kansas, not even Doctor Carey, understood him or appreciated him quite as
keenly as Asher Aydelot did.

CHAPTER XII

THE FAT YEARS

"The lean years have passed, and I approve of these fat ones."
"Be careful, old man. That way lies bad work."
--_The Light That Failed._

John Jacobs little realized how true was his estimate of the firm of
"Champers & Co." Nor did he suspect that at this very minute the firm was
in council in the small room beyond the partition wall--the "blind tiger"
of the Wyker eating-house.

"I tell you it's our chance," Darley Champers was declaring emphatically.
"You mustn't hold back your capital now. This firm isn't organized to
promote health nor Sunday Schools nor some other fellow's fortune. We are
together for yours truly, every one of us. If you two have some other
games back of your own pocketbooks, they don't cut any against this common
purpose. I'm for business for Darley Champers. That's why I'm here. I've
got no love for Doc Carey, ruling men's minds like they was all putty, and
him a putty knife to shape 'em finer yet. And another fellow I'd like to
put down so hard he'll never get over it is that straight-up-and-down
farmer, Asher Aydelot of the Sunflower Ranch, who walks like a military
captain, and works like a hired man, and is so danged independent he don't
give a damn for no man's opinion of him. If it hadn't been for him we'd a
had the whole Grass River Valley now to speculate on. I'm something of a
danged fool, but I knowed this boom was comin'. I felt it in my craw."

"So you always said, Champers," Thomas Smith broke in, "but it's been a
century coming. And look at the capital I've sunk. If you'd worked that
deal through, time of the drouth in seventy-four, we'd be in clover and no
Careyville and no Aydelots in the way. I could have saved Asher's little
bank stock then, too."

"You could?" Darley Champers stared at the s