It was always one of Champney's prime youthful joys to urge the Colonel, by judiciously applied excitants, to a greater flowering of eloquence; so, now, as an inducement he wrung his neighbor's hand and thanked him warmly for his timely recognition of the new Flamsted about to be. "Now," he said, "the thing is for all of us to fall into line and forge ahead, Colonel. If we don't, we'll be left behind; and in these times to lag is to take to the backwoods." "Right you are, my dear fellow; deterioration can only set in when the members of a community, like ours, fail to present a solid front to the disintegrating forces of a supine civilization which--" "At it again, Milton Caukins!" It was Mr. Wiggins who, entering the office, interrupted the flow,--"dammed the torrent", he was wont to say. He extended a hand to young Googe. "Glad to see you, Champney. I hear there is a prospect of your remaining with us. Quimber tells us he heard something to the effect that a position might be offered you by the syndicate." "It's the first I've heard of it. How did you hear, Uncle Jo?" He turned upon the old man with a keen alertness which, taken in connection with the Colonel's oratory, was both disconcerting and confusing. "How'd I hear? Le' me see; Champ, what was we just talking 'bout up the street, eh?" "Oh, never mind that now," he answered impatiently; "let's hear what you heard. I'm the interested party just now." But the old man looked only the more disturbed and was not to be hurried. "'Bout that little girl--" he began, but was unceremoniously cut short by Champney. "Oh, damn the girl, just for once, Uncle Jo. What I want to know is, how you came to hear anything about me in connection with the quarry syndicate." The old man persisted: "I'm a-tryin' to get a-holt of that man's name that got her up here--" "Van Ostend," Champney suggested; "is that the name you want?" "That's him, Van Ostend; that's the one. He an' the rest was hevin' a meetin' right here in this office 'fore they went to the train, an' I was settin' outside the winder an' heerd one on 'em say: 'Thet Mis' Googe's a stunner; what's her son like, does any one know?' An' I heerd Mr. Van Ostend say: 'She's very unusual; if her son has half her executive ability'--them's his very words--'we might work him in with us. It would be good business policy to interest, through him, the land itself in its own output, so to speak, besides being something of a courtesy to Mis' Googe. I've met him twice.' Then they fell to discussin' the lay of The Gore and the water power at The Corners." "Bully for you, Uncle Jo!" Champney slapped the rounded shoulders with such appreciative heartiness that the old man's pipe threatened to be shaken from between his toothless gums. "You have heard the very thing I've been hoping for. Tave never let on that he knew anything about it."