My stenographer, quite at ease, leaned his sticks in a corner and helped himself to a cup of tea and a couple of sandwiches, which in my opinion rivaled my eggs and milk of the early afternoon. My walk had made me comfortably tired; my lungs were distended with cool country air; my head was clear, and this domestic scene warmed the cockles of my heart. "How is the Chicopee & Shamrock reorganization coming on?" asked Hastings, striving to be polite by suggesting a congenial subject for conversation. "I don't know," I retorted. "I've forgotten all about it until Monday morning. On the other hand, how are your children coming on?" "Sylvia is out gathering chestnuts," answered Mrs. Hastings, "and Tom is playing football. They'll be home directly. I wonder if you wouldn't like Jim to show you round our place?" "Just the thing," I answered, for I guessed she had household duties to perform. "Of course you'll stay to supper?" she pressed me. I hesitated, though I knew I should stay, all the time. "Well--if it really won't put you out," I replied. "I suppose there are evening trains?" "One every hour. We'll get you home by ten o'clock." "I'll have to telephone," I said, remembering my wife's regular Saturday-night bridge party. "That's easily managed," said Hastings. "You can speak to your own house right from my library." Again I barefacedly excused myself to my butler on the ground of important business. As we strolled through the gateway we were met by a sturdy little boy with tousled hair. He had on an enormous gray sweater and was hugging a pigskin. "We beat 'em!" he shouted, unabashed by my obviously friendly presence. "Eighteen to nothing!" "Tom is twelve," said Hastings with a shade of pride in his voice. "Yes, the schools here are good. I expect to have him ready for college in five years more." "What are you going to make of him?" I asked. "A civil engineer, I think," he answered. "You see, I'm a crank on fresh air and building things--and he seems to be like me. This cooped-up city life is pretty narrowing, don't you think?" "It's fierce!" I returned heartily, with more warmth than elegance. "Sometimes I wish I could chuck the whole business and go to farming." "Why not?" he asked as we climbed a small rise behind the house. "Here's my farm--fifteen acres. We raise most of our own truck." Below the hill a cornfield, now yellow with pumpkins, stretched to the farther road. Nearer the house was a kitchen garden, with an apple orchard beyond. A man in shirtsleeves was milking a cow behind a tiny barn. "I bought this place three years ago for thirty-nine hundred dollars," said my stenographer. "They say it is worth nearer six thousand now. Anyhow it is worth a hundred thousand to me!" A little girl, with bulging apron, appeared at the edge of the orchard and came running toward us. "What have you got there?" called her father. "Oh, daddy! Such lovely chestnuts!" cried the child. "And there are millions more of them!"