"Why, I knocked him down, and when he was able to get up and look around again the whip was gone. Since that time we've been good friends. Now, about the opera house. You say you've got no money. Now, let me tell you what I'll do. I'll advance the money and go in as a partner. The money I am compelled to spend during each campaign is beginning to eat seriously into the income from my plantation, and I would like to ease up the pressure. My part might not be a great deal, but it would help. What do you say?" "I could go off into all sorts of extravagances, Senator. I could say that you have made my blood leap, that you--" "But that wouldn't be businesslike. What do you say?" "That I snap at your proposition." "All right, I'll go down to-morrow and rent the house." "But you don't care to have your name known in it, do you?" "Why not? It's all right. These people like a good show, and if we give them the best, it will make me still more useful and popular. Yes, Sir, its all right, and we'll draw up the papers to-morrow." CHAPTER VIII. THE STATE TREASURER. The town had been attractive, but now it sprung into endearment. Emotion was strong within me and my spirits rose, to find a new interest in everything and to pick up many a jest by the roadside. I caught the song of an old man who stood near the turnpike, trimming a young orchard; and the laughter of a child that was romping on the grass when we stopped at a toll gate threw sparkles of new life in the air. One sweet thrill of selfishness had made the whole world musical and glad. "Senator, whose house is that over yonder, to the left?" "Mine," he answered. "Oh, yes, this is the first time you've had an opportunity to view it from a distance. We are out too far to have the advantage of gas and city water, but we've got room to swing round in, and that's worth everything. Lumber dealer came one day and wanted to know what I'd take for those walnuts. I told him that I'd take human life if it was necessary. Hang me, if I didn't feel like setting the dogs on him. I do believe," he said, shading his eyes, "that yonder are Estell and Florence. Yes, Sir, he's got home." At the gate, beneath the walnut trees, a man and a woman stood looking toward us. The woman was Mrs. Estell. I had recognized her before the Senator directed my attention; I should have known her a mile away. Her gracefulness was so original that she must have been unconscious of its effect. The soft climate of the South had touched her with its ease, but she seemed ever on the verge of breaking away from it; and sometimes she did, not with mere gayety, but with unconquerable strength. She enforced upon me the belief that she had taken fencing lessons. "And suppose he should object to our compact?" was a surmise that passed through my mind; and I did not realize that I had given it actual utterance until the Senator surprised me by saying: