"Oh," Lavinia answered, "he has a place in the office of the freight department; he's a clerk there." "I'm so glad to know," said Mayme, as if in relief. "Why?" Lavinia looked up in alarm. "Oh, well, you know--how people talk." Mayme raised her pale eyebrows significantly. Lavinia was disturbed, but Lawrence, detecting the danger, instantly turned it off in a joke. "She heard he was a section hand," he said. "The idea!" laughed Lavinia. "Isn't this just the worst place for gossip you ever heard of?" said Mayme. "The worst ever," said Lawrence. "If I were you I'd quit and start a reform movement." When they had gone and were strolling toward the Carters', Lawrence grumbled at Mayme: "What did you want to give it all away to Lavinia for?" "Why, Jack, I didn't say anything, did I?" "Oh, no, nothing--only you tipped off the whole thing to her." "Why, what did I say that hinted at it, even?" "'Oh, you know how people talk!'" Lawrence mimicked her tone as he repeated her words. "Well, you know they do, Jack, and you know all the mean things they've been saying about Glenn. And you remember Charlie Davis' mother told mama that Charlie ran across him in the street: in Chicago and that--" "Oh, Charlie Davis!" said Lawrence, as impatiently as he could say anything. "What's he? Anyway, you didn't have to tell Lavinia." "Well, I'm glad we got the truth anyway." "Yes, so am I." "We must tell everybody." "Sure," acquiesced Lawrence, "if we can get the gossips started the other way they'll have him president of the road in a few days." CHAPTER XXIX A MAN OF LETTERS The Macochee gossips, after they were assured he was engaged in clerical, and not manual work, might have promoted Marley much more rapidly than his railroad would have done, had it not been for the news that he had changed his employment. They had gone far enough to noise it about that Marley was chief clerk in the office, where he was only a bill clerk, when the _Republican_, with the impartial good nature with which it treated all of Macochee's folk, so long as they kept out of politics, mentioned him for the first time since his departure, and then, to tell of the advancement he was rapidly making in the metropolis that loomed so large and important in their provincial eyes. Lavinia had the facts in a letter from Marley a day or so before the _Republican_ had them, though she never could imagine, as she told everybody, where the _Republican_ got its information.