love best--and usually we wind up by liking him, too.

It was so with Ed Smith. He let into my life a breath of fresh air, and
of new and curious points of view. I think he felt my interest, too, and
as I now look back upon it, I count his friendship as one of the things
that helped to bind me more closely and intimately to the _Star_. While
he was not at all sensitive, still he had already begun to feel that the
glorious progress he had planned for the _Star_ (and for himself) might
not be as easy to secure as he had anticipated. He wanted friends in the
office, friends of those he desired to be friendly with, especially
Anthy. Besides, I was helping fill his columns without expense!

I had a good lively talk with him that morning. Before I had known him
fifteen minutes he had expressed his opinion that the old Captain was a
"back number" and a "dodo," and that Fergus was a good fellow, but a
"grouch." He confided in me that it was his principle, "when in Rome to
do what the Romans do," but I wasn't certain whether this consisted, in
his case, of being a dodo or a grouch. He was full of wise saws and
modern instances, a regular Ben Franklin for wisdom in the art of
getting ahead.

"When the cash is going around," said he, "I don't see why I shouldn't
have a piece of it. Do you?"

He told me circumstantially all the reasons why he had come to
Hempfield.

"I could have made a lot more money at Atterbury or Harlan Centre; they
were both after me; but, confidentially, I couldn't resist the lady."

Well, Ed _was_ wonderfully full of business. "Rustling" was a favourite
word of his, and he exemplified it. He rustled. He got in several new
advertisements, he published paid reading notices in the local column, a
thing never before done on the _Star_. He persuaded the railroad company
to print its time tables (at "our regular rates"), with the insinuation
that if they didn't he'd ... and he formed a daring plan for organizing
a Board of Trade in Hempfield to boost the town and thus secure both
news and advertising for the _Star_. Oh, he made things lively!

Some men, looking out upon life, get its poetic implications, others see
its moral significance, and here and there a man will see beauty in
everything; but to Ed all views of life dissolved, like a moving
picture, into dollars.

[Illustration: _Ed's innocent suggestion of a house-cleaning was taken
by Fergus as a deadly affront_]

At first Fergus, that thrifty Sc