"It's a fine job," said the young engineer, coveting anew the tremendous task as he bent upon it an admiring professional eye. "This time next year you won't recognize the place. It's a noble thing, Mr. Burnit, to turn an utterly useless stretch of swamp like this into habitable land. Have you secured the entire tract?" "Unfortunately, no," Bobby confessed with a frown. "The extreme north eight acres are owned by another party." "And when you drain your property," mused Jimmy, smiling, "you will drain his." "Not if I can help it," declared Bobby emphatically. "You must come to some arrangement before you begin," warned the engineer with the severe professional authority common to the quite young. Already, however, he was trying to grow regulation engineer's whiskers; also he immediately planned to get married upon the proceeds of this big job, which, after years of chimerical dreaming, had become too real, almost, to be believed. "Perhaps you could get the owner to stand his proportionate share of the expense of drainage." Bobby smiled at the suggestion but made no other answer. He knew Silas Trimmer, or thought that he did, and the idea of Silas bearing a portion of a huge expense like this, when he could not be forced to shoulder it, struck him as distinctly humorous. CHAPTER IX AGNES DELIVERS BOBBY A NOTE FROM OLD JOHN BURNIT--IN A GRAY ENVELOPE That night, at the Traders' Club, Bobby was surprised when Mr. Trimmer walked over to his table and dropped his pudgy trunk and his lean limbs into a chair beside him. His yellow countenance was creased with ingratiating wrinkles, and the smile behind his immovable mustache became of perfectly flawless circumference as his muddy black eyes peered at Bobby through thick spectacles. It seemed to Bobby that there was malice in the wrinkles about those eyes, but the address of Mr. Trimmer was most conciliatory. "I have a fuss to pick with you, young man," he said with clumsy joviality. "You beat me upon the purchase of that Westmarsh property. Very shrewd, indeed, Mr. Burnit; very like your father. I suppose that now, if I wanted to buy it from you, I'd have to pay you a pretty advance." And he rubbed his hands as if to invite the opening of negotiations. "It is not for sale," said Bobby, stiffening; "but I might consider a proposition to buy your eight acres." He offered this suggestion with reluctance, for he had no mind to enter transactions of any sort with Silas Trimmer. Still, he recalled to himself with a sudden yielding to duty, business is business, and his father would probably have waved all personal considerations aside at such a point. "Mine _is_ for sale," offered Silas, a trifle too eagerly, Bobby thought. "How much?" he asked. "A thousand dollars an acre." "I won't pay it," declared Bobby.