"'I ain't so anxious any more,' says I, 'about sparing folks' feelings as I am about sparing folks. Nor I ain't so crazy as I used to be about saving myself trouble, either.' "'Dear Calliope,' says Alex, 'what an advocate you are. Won't you be my advocate?' "He wouldn't argue serious with me now no more than he would when he was in knickerbockers. But yet he was adorable. When we got back to the library, I went on finishing up the books and I could hear him being adorable. He dipped down into the past and brought up rich things--off down old ways of life in the village that he'd had a part in and then off on the new ways where his life had led him. Java--had Insley ever been in Java? He must show him the moonstone he got there and tell him the story they told him about it. But the queerest moonstone story was one he'd got in Lucknow--so he goes on, and sends Bayless for a cabinet, and from one precious stone and another he just naturally drew out romances and adventures, as if he was ravelling the stones out into them. And then he begun taking down some of his old books. And when it come to books, the appeal to Insley was like an appeal of friends, and he burrowed into them musty parchments abundant. "'By George,' Insley says once, 'I didn't dream there were such things in Friendship Village.' "'Next thing you'll forget they're in the world,' says Alex, significant. 'Believe me, a man like you ought not to be down here, or over to Indian Mound, either. It's an economic waste. Nature has fitted you for her glorious present and you're living along about four decades ago. Don't you think of that?...' "Then the telephone on the library table rang and he answered a call from the city. 'Oh, buy it in, buy it in, by all means,' he directs. 'Yes, cable to-night and buy it in. That,' he says, as he hung up, 'just reminds me. There's a first night in London to-night that I've been promising myself to see.... What a dog's life a business man leads. By the way,' he goes on, 'I've about decided to put in one of our plants around here somewhere--a tannery, you know. I've been off to-day looking over sites. I wonder if you can't give me some information I'm after about land around Indian Mound. I'm not saying anything yet, naturally--they'll give other people a bonus to establish in their midst, but the smell of leather is too much for them. We always have to surprise them into it. But talk about the ultimate good of a town ... if a tannery isn't that, what is it?'