rred a little at first. There were difficulties,
and he pointed them out.

"I don't know, Colonel Farley. It appears like I'm givin' all I've got
for a handout at the kitchen door of the big company. Then, again,
there's the Major. He's pizon against all these improvements. You don't
know the Major."

"On the contrary, my dear Mr. Gordon, it is because I do know him, or
know of him, that I am turning him over to you. You are the one person
in the world to obtain that coal lease. I confess I couldn't touch the
Major with a ten-foot pole, any more than you could go North and get the
cash. But you are his neighbor, and he likes you. What you recommend,
he'll do." Thus the enthusiast.

"Well, I don't know," said Caleb doubtfully; "I reckon I can try. He
can't any more 'n fire me, like he did the Southwestern right-o'-way
man. But then, about t'other part of it: I've got a little charcoal
furnace here that don't amount to much, maybe, but it's all mine, and
I'm the boss. When this other thing goes through, the men who are
putting up the money will own it and me. I'll be just about as much
account as the tag on a shoe-string."

This part of the conference was held on the slab-floored porch of the
oak-shingled house, with Thomas Jefferson as a negligible listener.
Since he was listening with both eyes and ears, he saw something in Mr.
Duxbury Farley's face that carried him swiftly back to the South
Tredegar railway station and to that first antipathetic impression. But
again the suave tongue quickly turned the page.

"Don't let that trouble you for a moment, Mr. Gordon," was the
reassuring rejoinder. "I shall see that your apportionment of stock in
the company is as large as the flotation scheme will stand; and as I,
too, shall be a minority stock-holder, I shall share your risk. But
there will be no risk. If the Lord prospers us, we shall both come out
of this rich men, Mr. Gordon."

The slow smile that Thomas Jefferson knew so well came and went like a
flitting shadow.

"I reckon the Lord don't make n'r meddle much with these here little
child's playhouses of our'n," said Caleb; and then he gave his consent
to the promoter's plan.

Singularly or not, as we choose to view it, the difficulties effaced
themselves at the first onset. Though tact was no part of Caleb Gordon's
equipment, his presentation of the matter to Major Dabney became so
nearly a personal asking--with Mr. Duxbury Farley and the Northern
capitalist