"It's a privilege I don't deny to nobody.... Say, Mr. Castle, be you goin' into this deal to make money or to take somebody's scalp?" "Baines," said Mr. Castle, "I'll buy you the best box of cigars in Boston if you'll tell me where you get your information." "Hatch it," said Scattergood, gravely. "Jest set patient onto the egg, and perty soon the shell busts and there stands the information all fluffy and wabbly and ready to grow up into a chicken if it's used right." "Will you answer a fair question?" "If our idees of the fairness of it agrees with one another." "Has McKettrick got to you first?" It was the information Scattergood wanted, but his dumplinglike face showed no sign of satisfaction. As a matter of fact, he did not know who McKettrick was--but he could find out. "Don't seem to recall any conversation with him," he said, cautiously, leaving Castle to believe what he desired--and Castle believed. "He was keeping his plans almighty dark. I don't understand his spilling them to you. It cost _me_ money to find out." "Dinner's waitin'," said Scattergood. "Did he offer to buy your road?" "If he did," said Scattergood, "it didn't come to nothin'." It will be observed that Scattergood had obtained important information, though affording none, and in addition had surrounded himself with a haze through which President Castle was unable to see clearly. Castle knew less after the interview than he had known when he came; Scattergood had discovered all he hoped to discover. Johnnie Bones came home next noon and reported to Scattergood that he had been partially successful. "I couldn't get all of that flat," he said. "Somebody's been buying on the quiet. Three strips from the river to the hill were not to be had, but I bought four strips, two at the ends and two between the pieces I couldn't get." "Better call it a side of bacon, Johnnie. Strip of fat and strip of lean. Dunno but it's better as it lays. Hear anythin' about the Goodhue tract?" "Somebody's been cruising it for a month back--without a brass band." "Um!... Send a wire, Johnnie. Lumberman's Trust Company, Boston. Set price Goodhue tract...." Johnnie telephoned the wire. Two hours later the answer came, "Goodhue tract no longer in our hands." "Did you ever wonder, Johnnie, why I never got int'rested into that Goodhue timber?" Johnnie shook his head. "Because," said Scattergood, "you got to log it by rail. Forty thousand acres of it, and no stream runnin' through it big enough to drive logs down.... But I got an idee, Johnnie, that loggin' by rail can be done economical. Know who bought that timber?" "No."