The Battlesburg _Blade_ was full of the big consolidation for a week following the providential visit of Mr. Lott. The Lewisville, Battlesburg and Elliston traction line was not merely an assured fact--it had always been that since the coming of Colonel Wallingford--but it was now even a bigger and better thing than ever, the key to a vast network of trolleys which, with this connecting link, would have its ramifications across more than the fourth part of a continent. The only drawback to all this good was that they were to lose as a permanent resident their esteemed fellow citizen, Colonel J. Rufus Wallingford--since he had sold his right of way, franchises, concessions and good will--and every issue of the _Blade_, from news columns to editorials, was a tribute to all that this noble, high-spirited gentleman had done for Battlesburg. A score of impulsive women kissed Mrs. Wallingford good-by at the train, while the Honorable G. W. Battles strove against Billy Ricks and Judge Lampton and Clint Richards for the honor of the last handshake with her husband; and after Mrs. Wallingford had fluttered her handkerchief from the car window for the last time, she pressed it to her eyes. "I'm going to keep my house there always," she said, when she had calmed, "and whenever we're tired of living at other places I want to come here--home! Why, just think, Jim, it's the only town you ever did business in that you can come back to!" He agreed with her in this, but, by and by, she found his shoulders heaving with his usual elephantine mirth. "What is it?" she asked him. "The joke's on me," he laughed. "The biggest stunt I ever pulled off, and even the baa-baas satisfied. Why, Fanny," and the surprise in his face was almost ludicrous, "it turned out to be a legitimate deal, after all!"