"I see you're looking at that map of Phosphate territory in Arkansas. It's a wonderful thing the way the Southwest is opening up, wonderful! All due to Northern enterprise and vigour, sir, every bit of it. We'd be nowhere without you. You'll find few men from my section of the country that will acknowledge it, but it's _so_. I never did believe in keeping up that spirit of mutual distrust and jealousy--waving the bloody shirt and all that; let bygones be bygones, I say; let's all work together for the common good, and give honour where honour is due. Why, sir, it was a Northern man--Lewis Sheister, from some little town up in New York State, that discovered and worked the first phosphate vein in Arkansas. The people down there in the Ozarks were ready to run him and his men out of there with shotguns when he started in--and now I guess they bless the day Sheister turned up. He's worth five hundred thousand dollars to-day, and he's been a factor in enriching that whole State. Yes, sir, there's millions right here." He rose, and, drawing a pencil from his waistcoat pocket, defined a small circle on the shining brittle surface of the map. "Right in that little zone, sir, millions for anyone, even with a very limited capital--ten for one, sir, ten for one is what dozens of my clients are drawing at this moment," said the colonel, pointing with his pencil, like a teacher of mathematics demonstrating at the blackboard, and eying the doctor profoundly. "Ever think of investing, Doctor?" he added, indifferently, resuming his seat, and picking a thread from his coatsleeve as he spoke. Alas, the gentleman had protested too much! "You'd find me one of your troublesome small investors, I am afraid," said the doctor, wishing uncomfortably that he could believe in Pallinder. "It's rarely a professional man lays up any money, you know."