A worn-out, puddle-holding Macadam roadbed had lain in the street since the memory of most men. It had occurred to a railroad to come into the city from the north, peg a station to the river bank, and persuade the city to pave its approaches, and when the observer of decades asked a citizen on the sidewalk: “Why, before this long, grey station and freight-yards here of the Peninsular and Northern Railroad are these piles of paving brick, this sudden bustle on Lower Bank Street?” he was told: “It's a deal between Marve Wood and the P. and N. He was going to make them come into the Union Station, but they fixed him, I guess.” “Fixed him?” “Oh, they're a happy family now.” The citizens of Port Argent held singular language. “Who is Marve Wood?” “He's--there he is over there.” “Talking to the young man with the notebook and papers?” “Yes. That's Dick Hennion, engineer and contractor.” “And this Wood--is he an engineer and contractor?” “No--well, yes. He contracts with himself and engineers the rest of us.” The observer of decades moved on, thoughtfully to observe other phases of the city, its markets, churches, charities, children pouring out of school, its pleasures at theatre, fair-grounds, and Outing Club. The young man with the notebook stood on the curb, writing in it with a pencil. He was large, lean, sinewy, broad-shouldered, brown-haired, grey-eyed, short-moustached, with features bony and straight. He produced the effect of impassiveness, steadiness, something concentrated and consistent in the midst of the bustle. Workmen slouched and hurried to and fro about him, unnoticed. There was the mingled click of shovel and bar and trowel, thud of rammer, and harsh voices of foremen. The elderly “Marve Wood,” stood beside him--thick-set, with a grey beard of the cut once typical throughout the Northern States, which gave to the faces that shape as of a blunt spade, and left the lips clean-shaven. He had a comfortable girth, a straight, thin-lipped mouth, a certain mellow Yankeeism of expression, and wore a straw hat and a black alpaca coat. Hennion tore a leaf from the notebook, and beckoned the head foreman, a huge, black-moustached Irishman. “Here, Kennedy, if any of these men ask for jobs to-morrow, set them to work.” The nearer workmen looked curiously toward' the paper which Kennedy tucked in his vest pocket. Hennion and Wood turned away to the city. The sidewalk grew more crowded as they came to Upper Bank Street, where the statue of a Civil-War general struck a gallant attitude on a pedestal. He appeared to be facing his country's enemies with determination, but time and weather had given the face a slight touch of disappointment, as if he found no enemies worth while in sight, nothing but the P. and N. station and the workmen tearing up Lower Bank Street. Henry Champney stood at his tall library window, gazing out, and saw Hennion and Wood go up the street. “Dick must have a hundred men out there,” he said.