Wood came to Port Argent after the War, a man in middle life, but he seemed to have been there before. He seemed to have drifted much about the continent. It was a common type in Port Argent, so many citizens, one found, had drifted in their time. He had a kind of land agency at one time, and an office on Hancock Street, and presently became one of those personages little noted by a public looking to oratory, but certainly members of party committees, sometimes holders of minor offices. Such a man's power, if it grows, has a reason to account for the growth, a process of selecting the man most fitted to perform a function. If one wished to know anything intimate about the city, what was doing, or about to be done, or how the Council would vote, or any one thread in the tangled interests of scores of men, Marve Wood appeared to have this information. His opinion was better--at least better informed--than most opinions. For some reason it was difficult not to be on good terms with him. Port Argent concluded one day that it had a “boss.” It was suggested in a morning paper, and people talked of it on the street. Port Argent was interested, on the whole pleased. It sounded metropolitan. Someone said, “We're a humming town.” Real estate at auction went a shade higher that morning, as at the announcement of a new hotel or theatre contracted for. The hardware man from the corner of Hancock Street said: “Wood, I hear you're a boss.” “That's it. Fellow told me so this morning. I threw him out of the window and asked him how to spell it. Been figuring on that ever since.” “Well, I've been reading the New York papers, and they do say down there it ought to be spelled with a brick.” “Well--now--I learned to spell that way, but the teacher used a shingle mostly. 'Marvin Wood, spell buzzard,' says he, and splits his shingle on my head for dropping a 'z.' Yes, sir, that was fifty years ago, and now every time I write a tough word I duck my head to dodge the shingle, and spell it wrong. I don't know. Maybe a brick would 've been better. Want anything in particular?” The hardware man wanted to know about the new Third-ward schoolhouse, and when and where to put in a bid for supplying it twelve dozen indestructible desks. The sparrows in the dark maples in front of Hennion's windows were quiet, because the night was come, wherein no sparrow may quarrel. The issues of their commonwealth were settled by being forgotten. Doubtless, many a sparrow would keep the perch he had pre-empted unrighteously, and in the morning the issues be different, and the victims find their neighbours overnight had tired of their wrongs. Even one's neighbours' sins are not interesting forever, let alone their wrongs. Hennion dressed and went out, and presently was walking on Lower Bank Street past the broken-up street and the piles of paving brick.