own has never been
bonded; we're free from debt and a good balance on hand for
improvements. Now along comes three or four hundred immigrants to begin
with--trade following the flag, I suppose _you_ call it, Colonel," (he
interpolated this with cutting sarcasm)--"a hodge-podge of Canucks, and
Dagos, and Polacks, and the Lord knows what--a darned set of foreigners,
foreign to our laws, our ways, our religion; and behind 'em a lot of men
that would be called windbags if it wasn't for their money-bags. And
between 'em our noses are going to be held right down on the grindstone.
I tell you we'll have to bond this town to support the schooling for
these foreign brats, and there's a baker's dozen of 'em every time; and
there'll be tooting and dancing and singing and playing on Sunday with
their foreign gimcranks,--mandolin-banjos and what-all--"

"Good heavens, my dear fellow!" the Colonel broke in with an air of
impatience, "can't you see that it's this very 'stir,' as you term it,
that is going to put this town into the front rank of the competing
industrial thousands of America?"

The Colonel, when annoyed at the quantity of cold water thrown upon his
redhot enthusiasm, was apt to increase the warmth of his patronizing
address by an endearing term.

"I see farther than the front ranks of your 'competing industrial
thousands of America,' Milton Caukins; I see clear over 'em to the very
brink, and I see a struggling wrestling mass of human beings slipping,
sliding to the bottomless pit of national destitution, helped downwards
by just such darned boomers of what you call 'industrial efficiency' as
you are, Milton Caukins." He paused for breath.

Augustus Buzzby, who was ever a man of peace, tried to divert this
raging torrent of speech into other and personal channels.

"I ain't nothin' 'gainst Mis' Googe as a woman, but she played me a mean
trick when she sold that first quarry. It killed my trade as dead as a
door nail. You can't hire them highflyers to put themselves into a town
their money's bankin' on to ruin in what you might call a summer-social
way. I found _that_ out 'fore they left this house last week."

"Yes, and she's played a meaner one now." Mr. Wiggins made the assertion
with asperity and looked at the same time directly at Octavius Buzzby.
"I know all about their free dispensaries that'll draw trade away from
my very counter and take the bread and butter out of my mouth; and as
for the fees--there won'