ng time, Patty, and I take an interest in you,
you see. Now, I don't fancy this young Culpeper. He is a conceited sort
of ass like his father before him, the sort that thinks all clover is
his fodder."

Though Gershom would have scorned philosophy had he ever heard of it,
he was well grounded in that practical knowledge of human perversity
from which all philosophers and most philosophic systems have sprung.
Had his next words been barbed with steel they could not have pierced
Patty's girlish pride more sharply. "I reckon he imagines all he's got
to do is to look sweet at a girl, and she'll fall at his feet."

Patty's eyes flashed with anger. "He is not unusual in that, is he?" she
asked mockingly.

"Well, you can't accuse me of that, Patty," said Gershom, with a
sincerity which made him appear less offensively oily. "I never looked
long at but one girl in my life, not since I first saw you, anyway--and
I don't seem ever to have had an idea that she would fall at my feet.
But I didn't bring you out here to begin kidding. I want to talk to you
about the Governor, and I was afraid he would catch on to something if
we stayed indoors."

"About Father?" She looked at him in alarm. "Is there anything the
matter with Father?"

Without turning his head, he glanced at her keenly out of the corner of
his eye. It was a trick of his which always irritated her because it
reminded her of the sly and furtive side of his character.

"You've a pretty good opinion of the old man, haven't you, Patty?"

"I think he is the greatest man in the world."

"And you wouldn't like him to run against a snag, would you?"

"What do you mean? Has anything happened to worry him?"

He had stopped just beyond the nearest side entrance to the Square, and
he stood now, with his eyes on the automobiles before the City Hall,
while he fingered thoughtfully the ornamental scarf-pin in his green and
purple tie. "There's always more or less to worry him, ain't there?"

She frowned impatiently. "Not Father. He is hardly ever anything but
cheerful. Please tell me what you are hinting."

"I wasn't hinting. But, if you don't mind talking to me a minute,
suppose we get away from these confounded cars."

He turned east, following the iron fence of the Square until they
reached the high grass bank and the old box hedge which surrounded the
garden at the back of the Governor's house. At the corner of the street,
which sank far below the garden terrace, he