He had several long talks with Mr. Sanders, during which he never once mentioned business nor anything relating thereto. Instead, he seemed to be very much interested in Adelaide and her personality, her nature and individuality. On this subject Mr. Sanders was eloquent. He could discourse on it for hours, and was only humorous when he wanted to make people believe he was in earnest. He told Somers all about Cally-Lou, and asked the young man what he thought about the child that was a little more than make-believe, and yet remained on the very verge of visibility. Now, the young man was very practical; circumstances had made him so. His spirit had had so little exercise, his dreams remained so persistently on the hither side of concrete things, he was so completely invested with the cold and critical views that were the result of his education, that his mind never ventured much beyond his material interests, and he never tried to peep around the many corners that life presents to a curious and sincere observer. Consequently, he was all at sea, as the saying is, when Mr. Sanders told him about Cally-Lou. He thought it was some form of a new joke, and he would have had a hearty laugh had the old philosopher given him the wink. But the wink was not forthcoming. On the contrary, much to the young man's surprise, Mr. Sanders appeared to be very serious. But the young man was as frank as it is possible for a youngster to be. "I'll be honest with you, Mr. Sanders," he said. "I don't know a thing about such matters. If I were not in Shady Dale, where everything seems to be so different, I would say at once that you are talking nonsense--that you are trying to play some kind of a practical joke--but, as it is, I don't know what to think." When the young man said that everything is different in Shady Dale, he meant that Adelaide was different, and Mr. Sanders knew it; so he said, "When you git so that you kin mighty nigh see Cally-Lou, you'll be wuth lookin' at twice." Somers took this more seriously than he would have taken it twenty-four hours previously--and he carried it to the tavern with him, and thought it over a long time; and then, as if that were not sufficient, he carried it to the Bowden place in the dusk of the evening, and worried with it until he had no difficulty in discovering where his grandfather had walked, and where his mother had hid herself when her feelings were hurt, and where she had played with her dolls.