Kenniston was totally unaware of furnishing in his proper person amusement to the mountaineer, but to his host he seemed a fool more bountifully endowed with folly than any other specimen of the genus with whom Tems had ever been brought into contact, and the projected hotel was accounted a ludicrous impossibility. It was Tems's secret persuasion that most of the population of this country had been slain in the war; he had himself seen much slaughter in its grim actuality. The idea that there were people who would wish to come long journeys to fill that vast projected structure seemed the most preposterous vaporing of imbecility. "Ain't they got nowhar ter bide?" he would demand, in incredulous pity for the homeless summer birds. He had come at last to treat it in his own mind as a bubble, a mere brainless figment, and only his courteous instincts prevented this from becoming apparent, although now and again it was perilously near revelation. "Well, no; I think the weather won't affect my building for a good while yet," answered Kenniston. Then, with a sudden afterthought, and perceiving the opening, "I'm troubled, though, about the blasting for the coal cellars and wine cellar. There will of necessity be quite an avalanche of fragments of the rock falling into the valley, and I wanted to give you warning of it before it begins." The look of attention deepened on the old face. The thin old head suavely nodded. "Thanky, sir. I feel obligated." And old Tems relapsed into silence. Kenniston was baffled for a moment, but presently he returned to the charge. "You and your family could leave the premises while the blasting was in progress. It might be inconvenient, but"-- "Yes--ye-es--ef so minded," the ancient householder acquiesced. "By all means," Kenniston pursued with more energy, stroking his brown whiskers with one hand, while he looked, keenly interrogative, at his interlocutor. "There might be danger, positive danger, in remaining." Then, seeking an ally, and taking hope from the quiescent silence of the stranger in the corner, "_You_ agree with me surely?" The stranger laughed, a round, vigorous, elastic tone. "Waal, I reckon old Cap'n Lucy is about ez good a jedge ez ter the dangers in dealin' in gunpowder ez ye'll meet up with this side o' Jordan. I'd be willin' ter leave sech ter him." "Of course--of course," Kenniston agreed hastily. "Only I am anxious to have no sort of responsibility,--moral responsibility, I mean,--in case of an accident to members of his family." He reflected that two of these were feminine, that the sex is to a unit a coward by open confession, and he sought to play upon their fears. But once more Adelicia interfered to show the more hopeful side of things. "It's toler'ble fur from hyar, a right good piece," she turned her head to say before she again bit the thread.