With some hesitation the man said: "We're in deep, 'Bob.' Awfully deep! And things haven't gone as well as they should, lately. It's temporary, of course, but it would require an extraordinary effort at this time to take on anything new. That's the worst of this oil game, it takes so much money to protect your holdings. It doesn't pay to prospect land for the benefit of your neighbor; the risks are too great. Gray has been pretty attentive to you, hasn't he?" "That's a part of the man; he is attentive to everybody. I have received more candy and flowers and delightful little surprises than in all my short, neglected life." "I didn't know you liked candy." "I don't. But I adore getting it. The thought counts. I don't care much for canaries, either--I have such bad luck with them--but he sent me the dearest thing from New York. A tiny mechanical bird with actual feathers. And it sings! It is a really, truly yellow canary in a beautiful gold cage, and when you press a spring it perks its head, opens its beak, flirts its tail, and utters the most angelic song. It must have cost a fortune. Couldn't you _love_ a man who would think of a present like that?" "Hm-m! Could _you_?" "Oh, I'm joking, of course," "Bob" said, seriously. "We are merely business associates, Mr. Gray and I, but he has the faculty of taking his personality into his business, and that's why I know he is bound to make a great success." "Some day," Nelson said, with an effort at lightness, "when we have finished with this infernal oil excitement and the fever has subsided, perhaps I'll have a chance to--well, to play ladies' man. It won't last long--" "I'm sure it won't," laughed the girl. "You'd never make a go of it, Henry." "I mean this boom won't last. These fools think it will, but it won't. While it does last, we busy men have no time for anything else, no chance to think of anything, no room in our minds--" The speaker stared gloomily into space. He shook his head. "When a fellow is worried about important matters, he neglects the little things." "To me that is the tragedy of this oil excitement. It devours everything fine in us. I wonder if the 'little things' of life aren't, after all, the most important. Mind you, I'm not hinting--I don't want your attentions--I wouldn't have time for them, anyhow, for I'm just as feverish as anybody else. But in the midst of all these new concerns, these sudden millions, this overnight success, our ambitious schemes, we are forgetting the things that really count. Gentleness, courtesy, love, home, children: they're pretty big, Henry. Candy and roses and yellow canaries, too. But "--the speaker rose, briskly--"I didn't come here to talk about them; I came here to sell you an oil well. Sorry you can't take it."