e was so different as to be
momentarily amusing to his royal highness. We were a new toy--that's
what we were: the rag baby for which the pampered child of wealth
temporarily discards her French dolls.

It was a fortunate thing that Ed started Nort at once on the task of
overhauling the gasoline engine, for it was one of the things that he
had always loved to do. When he had finished the engine, he must clean
up and repair the belts and pulley that operated the press, and this led
him naturally to the press itself, an ancient Hoe model with heavy
springs below that operated the running table. By this time he had begun
really to wake up, and as he worked, hummed like a hive of bees. He
called the press "Old Harry," and gave it such a cleaning up as it had
not had since the early days of Anthy's father. All this seemed to
amuse him very much, for he imagined things with his fingers. It also
amused us, he was so tremendously interested and so personal about it
all. He was forever calling in Fergus, never Ed Smith, with such remarks
as these:

"How does she look now, Fergus? Will she stand for a little stiffer
spring, you think? She's a good one, eh, Fergus, for her age?" And so
on, and so on.

During these days I watched Fergus with almost as much interest as I
watched Nort. He seemed nonplussed. He was like a hen that has
unexpectedly hatched a duckling. At one moment he seemed resentful at
this uprooting of ancient and settled institutions, and he was a little
angry all the time at being carried along by Nort's enthusiasm, for he
was constitutionally suspicious of enthusiasm; but, on the other hand,
he could not resist the constant appeals to his superior judgment. When
deferred to he would drop his head a little to one side, partially close
one eye, draw down the corners of his mouth, and after smoking furiously
for a few puffs, would take out his pipe and remark:

"Wull, it looks to me----" etc., etc.

As he gave his opinion I could see the live gleam in Nort's eyes, and I
knew that he was finding almost as much amusement in tinkering Fergus as
he found in tinkering the old press. I think that Fergus liked Nort from
the very first, but wild horses could not have dragged a favourable
opinion of him out of Fergus. Fergus had a deeply ingrained conviction
that no man should think more highly of himself than he ought to think,
and lost no opportunity of reducing bumps of self-esteem, wherever
discovered.

Having fi