"Sounds fine," the burgess said. He started for the door. "But there's a fellow with a plant in Brooklyn who's interested too. I understood he's coming out to see us about it, but I suppose this weather'll hold him up. I think we'd better table this matter until I hear from him and have a chance to compare the offers. Now, if you'll excuse me--" "I never thought," said Chesbro flatly, "that I'd see a neighbor selling out to foreign interests when he has a bid from a local man." The burgess took his hand off the doorknob and looked at Chesbro steadily up and down. "I don't like your language worth a damn," he said. "I'd give you a lecture on manners if I didn't have more important things to do. You can find your way out, can't you?" Chesbro's eyes dropped, but the burgess thought he could read a look of calculation on his face. "Sorry," he said. "By the way, my car is just up the hill. Can I help out?" "Well," said the burgess, and thought. Might as well save climbing all the way up West Street--and you couldn't brush off a man who was trying to do you a favor, just because you thought he stank. "Obliged," he said. "If you'll drop me at my house I'll pick up my own car." He waited with Mrs. Chesbro while her husband dashed through the rain. She didn't talk, which the burgess approved, and once when he met her eye she gave him a tired smile. The burgess judged that she was onto her husband, and seldom had anything to smile about. * * * * * For that matter, what did anyone have to smile about? The burgess looked over his borough and hardly heard Artie Chesbro chattering beside him. The street lamps at the bottom of West Street were out. One of the big elms that framed the post office was trailing a pair of enormous branches, broken-winged, across the street; they had to detour far to the left to pass it. Well, there wouldn't be much traffic tonight--and you couldn't tell, maybe he'd be lucky and the whole tree would have to come down; and then they could get on with widening West Street and the hell with the Garden Club. They went up over the West Street hill and down the other side. "--don't know if you've considered the importance of warehousing facilities in attracting industry," Chesbro was saying in his ear. "War plants? Sure. They're a dime a dozen, Henry, and they come and fold up and then where are you? But you take a town that's got a reputation for good, low-cost--"