As soon as dinner was over, a dinner that stuck in his throat for hours, he told Flossy that two men were rushing Bill to desperation for their handbills. He hurried out by way of the alley. Flossy ran after him. "You forgot your hat, Jap," she cried breathlessly. He took the hat and started off silently. "Wait a minute, Jap." Her voice was insistent. "You didn't put on a grave face with Ellis, did you? Oh, Jap"--the cry was from her heart--"he will never live to see the new office! He will never know of the realization of his dreams, the big town, the trains whirling through, and he looking down from his lofty window with a smile of superior joy. Oh, Jap, how often have we heard him tell about it! He doesn't know. He is full of hope. Only just before you came he was joking about the Star Spangled Banner he was going to wind around his brow when he dedicated the _Herald_ office. Jap, be true to his faith, for he will never open the door of that office. He will never help to get out the first paper." She strangled and turned away. Then in brisk tones she added: "Now, Jap, hurry along. Here comes Ellis to scold." And in the marvelous manner that is God-given to loving women, she forced a smile to her lips as she gave the youth a playful shove and ran to meet her husband. A few days later they left. The town took a holiday, and with laughter and merrymaking it celebrated Ellis Hinton's first vacation. A water tank was in process of construction, at the upper end of a half-mile stretch of double track, and at the lower end of the siding, close to Main street, the imposing brick railroad station stood in potential grandeur, its bricks still separated by straw and its ample foundation giving promise of stability as it reposed in sacks of cement and piles of crushed stone. Something of this was incorporated in Ellis's farewell speech as he addressed his townspeople. When the train began to move his black head was still visible, as he returned quip for joke. And Flossy was flitting from her lifelong friends as if no trouble clouded her brow. Little J. W. was the feature of the going, and under the pretense of caring for his wants, their sleeper compartment had been piled with fruit and flowers by loving friends who had gone on to the nearest town to meet the train, so that the surprise should be the more complete. Then, to the sound of the village band, Ellis left what he had always called "my town." Jap did not go to the station, and when Bill found the door of their improvised office locked, he turned silently away. His heart was full, too.