no other place?"

"Let me see. No, I don't think so. Kaufman's barn was burned down last
week, so you couldn't storm that now. Siegel's wouldn't be just the
place, and, besides, they have other cattle there now, so that's out of
the question. You might get a loan of the church--no, the church is not
a church. We only call it so for respectability's sake. It is used for
almost any old thing on week days, and on Sunday a dominie from an
adjoining parish tackles sermons once in a while. But then, I hardly
think it would suit. But hold on a minute--when did you expect to come
here?"

"Well, we thought of getting here Saturday night."

"Saturday night!" exclaimed McGowan, in surprise. "Why didn't you say so
at first?"

"What's the matter now?"

"Saturday night! Why, I thought you meant to descend on us to-morrow
night. 'Nuff sed. Say no more. The academy will be ready for you."

"The what?"

"The Gotown Metropolitan Academy of Music will be ready for inauguration
by a company of distinguished actors--all stars, more or less--from the
principal theatres of the metropolis--next Saturday night," replied Big
Ed in a grandiloquent outburst.

"You don't mean it, Ed?" said the Weston landlord, somewhat amazed at
the suggestion.

"Can't be did," said Handy.

"Can't, eh?" remarked McGowan, with a smile of contempt on his cheery
face. "You don't know Gotown, my friend. Come here," he continued, as he
rose from his chair and moved toward the door and motioned his friends
to follow. "It is purty dark outside, but no matter about that. Look out
yonder and tell me what you see?"

"Not much of anything now, but the faint outlines of a bunch of houses,
cranes, derricks, and things, and a lot of lights," replied Handy.

"Right you are in what you say. Now listen to me and hear what I have to
say. Had you stood on this same spot you are now standing on, a year
since, and in broad daylight, the only thing you'd have seen, barrin'
the ground, would be the cattle in the field--and darned few of them, at
that--and a few houses here and there, miles apart. A year ago, my
friend, lacking a few days, Gotown didn't exist. Isn't what I'm tellin'
him true, Myles?" said the speaker, appealing for corroboration of his
statement to one who was evidently a steady patron of the McGowan
establishment, and who was about to enter.

"That's about the size of the truth of it. A year ago, come next
Saturday night, we christened her, all right, al