farmers begin calling each other up at three o'clock in the
morning. Say, I wish you'd step in sometime. I'd just love to have you.
But you are so busy and got so many friends, you won't have much time
for me, I guess."

Mr. Opp thought otherwise. He said that no matter how pressed he was by
various important duties, he was never too busy to see a friend. And he
said it with the air of one who confers a favor, and Mr. Gallop received
it as one who receives a favor, and they shook hands warmly and parted.

VI

Mr. Opp, absorbed in the great scheme which was taking definite form in
his mind, did not discover until he reached the steps that some one was
lying in a hammock on the porch.

It was a dark-haired girl in a pink dress, with a pink bow in her hair
and small bows on the toes of her high-heeled slippers--the very kind of
person, in fact, that Mr. Opp was most desirous of avoiding.

Fortunately she was asleep, and Mr. Opp, after listening in vain at the
door for sounds of Mrs. Gusty within, tiptoed cautiously to the other
end of the porch and took his seat on a straight-backed settee.

Let it not for a moment be supposed that Mr. Opp was a stranger to the
fascinations of femininity. He had been inoculated at a tender age, and
it had taken so completely, so tragically, that he had crept back to
life with one illusion sadly shattered, and the conviction firm within
him that henceforth he was immune. His attitude toward the subject
remained, however, interested, but cautious--such as a good little boy
might entertain toward a loaded pistol.

As he sat very straight and very still on the green settee, he tried to
compose his mind for the coming interview with Mrs. Gusty. Directly
across the road was Aker's old carpenter-shop, a small, square,
one-story edifice, shabby, and holding out scant promise of journalistic
possibilities. Mr. Opp, however, seldom saw things as they were; he saw
them as they were going to be. Before five minutes had elapsed he had
the shop painted white, with trimmings of red, new panes in the windows,
ground glass below and clear above, an imposing sign over the door, and
the roadway blocked with eager subscribers. He would have to have an
assistant, of course, some one to attend to the general details; but he
would have charge of everything himself. He would edit a paper,
comprehensive in its scope, and liberal in its views. Science, art,
religion, society, and politics would all