I have just had a talk with Mr. McElwin and he is still greatly
distressed over--over that affair, and he thinks by putting our
reasons to work we can get at a settlement. The fact is, he wonders
that you would want to stay in such a small and unimportant place as
this is, after your editorial that everybody is talking about."

"Did he call it an editorial?" Lyman asked, smiling at his visitor.

"Well, I don't know as he called it that, but whatever it is, he was a
good deal struck by it, and he wondered that you didn't go to some big
city and set up there. And I wondered so too, from all that I heard.
Somebody, I have forgotten who, hinted that maybe you didn't have
money enough and--"

"Money," said Lyman; "why, I've got money enough to burn a wet
elephant."

Sawyer blinked in the glare of this dazzling statement, but he managed
to smile and then to proceed: "I spoke to Mr. McElwin about what had
been hinted, and inasmuch as you had applied to him for a loan, he
didn't know but it was the truth."

"A very natural conclusion on his part," said Lyman, leaning back and
crossing his feet on a corner of the table.

"Yes, he thought so, and I did, too. He ain't so hard a man to get
along with as you might think."

"He is not a hard man to get away from. It doesn't seem to put him to
any trouble to let a man know when he's got enough of him."

"I'm afraid you didn't see him under the best conditions."

"No, I don't believe I did. He made me feel as if I looked like the
man standing at the threshold of the almanac, badly cut up, with crabs
and horns and other things put about him."

"I think you would find him much more agreeable now."

"Oh, he was agreeable enough then, only he didn't agree. And I am
thankful that he didn't."

"Well, he regrets that he didn't let you have the money, although you
came in an unbusiness-like way."

"Yes, I did. And pretending to be a lawyer, I ought to have known
better. I don't blame him for that."

"What do you blame him for, then?"

"For wanting his daughter to be your wife."

Sawyer jerked his hand as if something had bitten him. "But what right
have you to blame him for that? It was arranged long before you ever
saw me, and besides what right have you, a stranger, to interfere in
his affairs?"

"That's very well put, Mr. Sawyer, but there are some affairs that
rise above family and appeal to humanity. You requested me to be cool
and deliberate, and you will pardon me,