He halted before a sign which proclaimed that here was the Diversity House. There did not seem to be a great deal of bustle connected with this establishment; as a matter of fact, there was no sign of life at all unless you count an unshaven gentleman in white woolen socks and a calico shirt, who lent the support of his back to a post on the piazza and snored feebly. Jim went in. The office was deserted. He coughed. In another month Jim knew how useless it was to seek to attract attention in that hotel by coughing, indeed by anything short of exploding dynamite on the floor. Next he tried kicking the counter. At best it was only a hollow-sounding sort of kick and got no results whatever. Jim was growing impatient, so he inserted three or four fingers in his mouth and whistled. It was a lovely, ear-splitting, sleep-piercing whistle, and Jim heard a movement on the porch. The gentleman of the white socks peered through the window, feeling of his ear as though it had been sorely abused, and looked at Jim disapprovingly. “Gosh all hemlock!” exclaimed the gentleman, mildly. “Are you the proprietor?” Jim demanded. The gentleman stared some more. “Who? Me? Ho! Don’t calc’late to be,” he said. “Where is he? Dead?” “If he is he hain’t let on to nobody. Seems though he might be over t’ the printin’-office playin’ cribbage.” “What do I do? Wait till he comes back before I get a room?” “Hain’t no objections, but mostly they go up and pick out the room they like.” Jim sighed impatiently and placed his bag on the counter. “Can you tell me where the new mill is being built?” “Down the road a piece. Keep right a-goin’ and you can’t miss the dum thing.” “Thank you,” said Jim, and started out to inspect the plant of which he had become proprietor. Jim walked down the street, which did not run ahead in a straight line, but meandered about aimlessly as though trying for all it was worth to keep under the shade of the fine big maples which bordered it. Nobody could blame it. In fact, Jim thought it showed extraordinary intelligence for an illiterate, unpaved, country clodhopper of a road, for the shade was the pleasantest, most friendly thing he had found in Diversity. In five minutes he rounded a bend and came upon a flat which seemed like a huge platter on which somebody was trying to fry a number of large and small buildings. Half an eye could tell the buildings were new, indeed unfinished. Heat-waves radiated from their composition roofs, and as for their corrugated-iron sides, Jim fancied their ugly red was not due so much to paint as to the fact that they were red-hot. Everywhere were men hurrying about as if it were a reasonable day and they weren’t in the least danger of sunstroke. Inside Jim could hear the clang of hammers, the rasp of saws, the multitude of sounds which denote the business of an army of workmen.