"You bet you are," Ponk assured him. "And, to be brief, knowin' how valuable your time is for gougin' mortgages out of unsuspectin' victims--" "Well, we haven't foreclosed on the Commercial Hotel and Garage yet," York interrupted. "No, but you're likely to the minute my back's turned. That's why I have to go facin' south all the time. But to get to real business now, York--" "I wish you would," York declared. His caller paid no heed to the thrust, and continued, seriously, "I can't get some things off my mind, and I've got to unload, that's all." "Go ahead. I'm your dumping-ground," York said, with a smile. "That's what you are, you son of a horse-thief. I mean the tool of a grasping bunch of loan sharks known as the Macpherson Mortgage Company. Well, it's that young lady at your house." "I see. We robbed you of a boarder," York suggested. "Aw, shut up an' listen, now, will you? You know I'm a man of affairs here. Owner and proprietor and man-of-all-work at the Commercial Hotel an' Gurrage, bass soloist in the Baptist choir, and--by the removal of the late deceased incumbent--also treasurer of the board of education of the New Eden schools--" "All of which has what to do with the young lady from Philadelphia?" York inquired, blandly. "Well, listen. Here's where tendin' to other folks's business comes in. A good-lookin' but inexperienced young lady comes out here from Philadelphia to find a claim left her by her deceased father. Out she goes to see said claim, payin' me good money for my best car--to ride in state over her grand province--of sand. And there wasn't much change but a pearl-handle knife an' a button-hook in her purse when she pays for the use of the car, even when I cut down half a buck on the regular hire. Her kind don't know rightly how to save money till they 'ain't none to save. But the look in her eyes when she come steamin' in from that jaunt was more 'n I could stand. York, she ain't the first Easterner to be fooled by the promise of the West. Not the real West, you understand, but the sham face o' things put up back East. An' here she be in our midst. Every day she goes by after the mail gets in, looking like one of them blue pigeons with all the colors of a opal on their necks, and every day she goes back with her face white around the mouth. She's walkin' on red-hot plowshares and never squealin'." Ponk paused, while York sat combing his fingers through his hair in silence. "You know I'm some force on the school board, if I don't know much. I ain't there to teach anybody anything, but to see that such ignoramuses as me ain't put up to teach children. Now we are shy one teacher in the high-school by the sudden resignation of the mathematics professor to take on underwritin' of life insurance in the city. Do you suppose she'd do it? Would it help any if we offered the place to Miss Swaim? It might help to keep her in this town."