Miss Shott was very industrious and energetic in expressing her opinion of Mr. Burke. "There's a chambermaid at the hotel," she said, "who's told me a lot of things about him, and it's very plain to my mind that he isn't the gentleman that he makes himself out to be! His handkerchiefs and his hair-brush aren't the kind that go with fur overcoats and high hats, and she has often seen him stop in the hall downstairs and black his own boots! Everybody knows he was a sailor, but as to his ever having commanded a vessel, I don't believe a word of it! But Willy Croup and that man needn't count on their schemes coming out all right, for Sarah Cliff isn't any older than I am, and she's just as likely to outlive them as she is to die before them!" The fact that nobody had ever said that Burke had commanded a vessel, and that Miss Shott had started the belief that Mrs. Cliff was in a rapid decline, entirely escaped the attention of her hearers, so interested were they in the subject of the unworthiness of the fine gentleman at the hotel. Winter had not yet really set in when George Burke, who had perceived no reason to imagine that he had made a drop in public estimation, felt himself stirred by emotions of triumphant joy. The new building on the corner lot was on the point of completion! Workmen and master-workmen, mechanics and laborers, had swarmed in, over, and about the new edifice in such numbers that sometimes they impeded each other. Close upon the heels of the masons came the carpenters, and following them the plumbers and the plasterers; while the painters impatiently restrained themselves in order to give their predecessors time to get out of their way. The walls and ceilings were covered with the plaster which would dry the quickest, and the paper-hangers entered the rooms almost before the plasterers could take away their trowels and their lime-begrimed hats and coats. Cleaners with their brooms and pails jostled the mechanics, as the latter left the various rooms, and everywhere strode Mr. Burke. He had made up his mind that the building must be ready to move into the instant it arrived at its final destination. It was a very different building from what Mrs. Cliff had proposed to herself when she decided to add a dining-room to her old house. It was so different indeed, that after having gone two or three times to look upon the piles of lumber and stone and the crowds of men, digging, and hammering, and sawing on the corner lot, she had decided to leave the whole matter in the hands of Mr. Burke, the architect, and the contractor. And when Willy Croup endeavored to explain to her what was going on, she always stopped her, saying that she would wait until it was done and then she would understand it.