“Lord knows,” said the mayor. “How do the sparrows manage to live? I guess there're times when they need a load of coal and a market basket full of victuals to help tide 'em over a hard spell, but naturally nobody would dare to offer to help them. They're proud as Lucifer themselves, and the town is kind of proud of 'em. They're institutions with us, as you might say.” McGlynn, who, as Olcott was to learn later, was a product of new industrial and new political conditions in the community, spoke with the half-begrudged admiration which the self-made so often have for the ancestor-made. “We ain't got so very many of the real aristocrats in this section any more, what with all this new blood pouring in since our boom started up; and even if they are as poor as Job's turkey, these Van Nichts still count for a good deal round here. Money ain't everything anyway, is it?... Well, Mr. Olcott, if you've seen enough here, we'll turn round and go see something else.” He addressed his chauffeur: “Jim, suppose you take us by the new hosiery mills next. I want Mr. Olcott to see one of the most prosperous manufacturing plants in the state. Employs nine hundred hands, Mr. Olcott, and hasn't been in operation but a little more than three years. That's the way this town is humping itself. You didn't make any mistake, coming here.” As the car swung about, Olcott gave the Van Nicht place a backward scrutiny over his shoulder and was impressed by its appearance into saying this: “It strikes me as having a mighty unhealthy air about it. I'd say offhand it was a first-rate breeding spot for malaria and rheumatism. I wonder why they don't trim up that big old tree and give the sunshine and the light a chance to get in under it.” “For heaven's sake and your own, don't you suggest that to the old boy when you meet him,” said McGlynn with a grin. “He'd as soon think of cutting off his own leg as to touch a leaf on the family tree. It's sacred to him. It represents all the glory of his breed and he venerates it, the same as some people venerate an altar in a church.” “Then you think I will be likely to meet him? I'd like to--from what you tell me, he must be rather a unique personality.” “Yes, he's all of that--unique, I mean. And you're pretty sure to meet him before you've been in town many months. He seems to regard it as his duty to call on certain people, after they've been here a given length of time, and extend to them the freedom of the town that his illustrious great-granddaddy founded. If you're specially lucky--or specially unlucky--he may even invite you to call on him, although that's an honour that doesn't come to very many, even among the older residents. The Van Nichts are mighty exclusive and it isn't often that anybody sees what the inside of their house looks like--let alone a stranger.... Say, Jim, after we've seen the hosiery mills, run us on out past the County Feeble-Minded and Insane Asylum. Mr. Olcott will enjoy that!”