With a laugh Paul admitted it. “I had a narrow escape,” he added. “Jeff wanted to brain me on the spot with an ax.” “But you bet he didn't,” Silas chuckled, “an' I'll lay he's lookin' at things in a brighter light than ever fell across his path before. But I've come to see you about business--strict earthly business, an' it's your business, not mine. Paul, you've heard of Theodore Doran an' the big cotton-factory he's just built at Chester?” “Oh, yes,” Paul returned. “Some of my men have gone over there to work.” “Well, what do you think? Doran is stoppin' at Kerr's Hotel, buyin' up cotton to run on next fall, an' this mornin' he come in my shop an' took a seat. You see, I used to know him an' his folks powerful well. He was in a Sunday-school class of mine, along with three other lads, away back in the seventies, when he was a tow-headed scrub of a boy that nobody ever thought would get rich, an' so I reckon he's purty free with me in confidential matters. Well, he set in to chattin' in a roundabout way, an' it wasn't long before I took notice that the talk always somehow got back to you an' your expert management of Hoag's affairs. Whar I fust began to smell a rat was when he said he'd been to every plant an' farm of Hoag's an' taken a look at 'em. Then what do you reckon he said? He said he had looked high an' low for a man to help 'im run the big factory, but hadn't found the right chap. Then he went on to say that from all he had seed an' heard you was the one he was lookin' for. He knowed me an' you was close friends, an' so he bantered me to find out if I thought you'd consider a change. I told 'im I didn't know; but, la me! if I didn't grease the wheels o' your cart no man in Georgia could. I said a lot, but he had heard more than I could tell 'im in a month o' Sundays. He said what he wanted was a feller who he knowed was honest to the core, an' he was sure he could sleep sound with a man at the helm that had come back here, like you did, as a bare matter of principle.” “I am afraid you both are thinking entirely too well of me,” Paul faltered, “but I am glad you wanted to help me along.” “Well,” Tye continued, “the upshot of the talk was that Doran didn't want no mix-up with Jim Hoag over tryin' to hire a man o' his, an' he asked me, as your friend, to sort o' sound you. He says he's willin' to pay a big price for your services, an' he thinks you will take an interest in the work. It is to be a model mill. They have built comfortable cottages for the workers, with a nice garden tacked onto each one, an' they don't intend to employ little children. Paul, it is a fine job--there is no better anywhar. I told 'im I didn't think you was bound to any written contract to Hoag, an' Doran said he was sure you wasn't, because Hoag wouldn't obligate hisse'f to nobody--even a good man.”