"If only she was safe from the sharks!" says he. "If I found any young man that I thought was after her money, not after her--why, I don't know what I'd do to him!" "I know what you'd do, Colonel," says I; and I was glad I hadn't told him. "Well, maybe. The trouble is to find any young man that's halfway as good as her, with some sort of folks back of him and some sort of way of making a living. You see, Curly, you can't tell much about things ten or twenty years ahead. A pore man may get money or a rich man may lose money. Now her ma married me when I didn't have no chance on earth ever to be anybody or to have any money; but we got on and was right happy--anyways I was--and I wasn't rich then. "I'm awful rich now, Curly," says he, "though I don't know as I'm any happier. It bores me. For instance, I was looking around today for a chance to invest a little more money; not much, only about half of this here last deferred payment that come in--all Old Man Wisner's money--and I seen in the papers that we haven't got no potash works in America to amount to much, and that potash is shore worth plenty of money--whatever potash is. So I went out to look over things and I concluded to invest a few hundred thousand dollars in making potash. I've got a good man, with specs, that knows how to make it out of seaweed, or something that grows raw and is plenty, I reckon. I suppose pretty soon we'll be making forty to fifty per cent; maybe more. That's what bothers me--I can't find no hard game to play. I can't hardly take no interest in life. "I was looking around some more and I seen where this country ain't got no dye works--the kind of dyes they make outen coal tar, which is made outen coal. Yet we've got plenty of coal and I own several coal mines out in Wyoming. I got another man, with specs, and I shouldn't wonder if we'd be making plenty of dyes before long, same as they used to import. "Well," says he, filling up his pipe again, "I'd be happy enough fooling around this way, pushing in a few white checks once in a while--a few hundred thousand dollars. Anyways, I'd like it if I could lose once in a while--but then there's the kid." "It comes around to her after all, Colonel, don't it?" says I. "That's right," he says. "I play the game; she uses the winnings. She's going to be one of the richest girls in this whole town." Seems like I couldn't get to tell him what I ought to. Every time he came around to the same place, talking about the kid. He didn't know as much as I did. I knew what'd make Old Man Wisner the happiest man alive--he'd feel that way if he knowed his hired man had got thick with our girl! He'd of encouraged that any way he could if he'd knowed anything about it. That would of pleased him. I had in my mind, too, how Bonnie Bell had looked at that hired man. So I set there, not having said a word yet and not daring to. It just seemed like I couldn't tell the old man.