"Aw!" answers the parson, solemn, "--aw! my friend, give you' heart a housecleanin'. Think not so muchly about worldly _po_ssessions, but _see_cure a lot in the New Jerusalem!" Then Porky flew up. Said the parson 'd insulted him. "And," he almost yelled, "this is how it stands. Either you got to buy the block where the pavilion's goin' to be, 'r I'll buy the Cathedral property." "I ain't got you' means at my command," says the parson. "Never mind. I'll take the church lots. Name you' figger." "Three thousand." Porky pulled out his check-book and begun to scribble with one of them squirt-gun pens. "The matter is settled," he says. Say! the feller who'd sole that property to the parson fer a hunderd--we had to prop him up! Just afterwards, I had my chin with the real-estate dude, and I tell you it made me pretty blue. "Sorry, Lloyd," he says; "you know _I_ never tole you to buy _south_ of town. And I don't keer to bother with you' Addition. 'Cause Goldstone is goin' to grow to the north and east." Porky was there, and he said the very same thing. And a few minutes later on, when the doc come in, I couldn't git him to even _con_sider lookin' over my buy. But fer a lot on the north side, belongin' to the parson, he put down the good, hard _coin_. North and east was the hull talk now, and them Goldstone fellers who'd sole out cheap in that end of town felt some pale. But the Chicago gents was as pert as prairie-dawgs, and doin' a thunderin' lot of buyin'. Now, the doc owned sev'ral lots east of Porky's tract. "New drug-store here," he says, "and a fine town hall over it. I'll put ten thousand into the buildin'." And the parson bought next to the site fer the Normal College. "The city," he says, "'ll want a spot fer its High School." All the time this was goin' on, I was livin' on nothin', you might say, and not even spendin' a cent fer a shave. My haid had a crop of hay on it that would 'a' filled a pilla; I had a Santy Claus beard, and if I couldn't afford to grub at the hotel, I wasn't mean enough to use they soap. So, far as looks goes, I was some changed. Then--the _Tarantula_ showed up with the hull story about coal and oil and gas! Say! the cat was outen the bag. And Goldstone come nigh havin' a fit and fallin' in. Here it'd been over a gold-mine, and didn't know it! And here it'd gone and sole itself out to a passel of strange ducks! "_Feller citizens,_" says the paper, "_this beautiful city of yourn is destined to rival South McAlester and Colgate._"