ngaging Judge Bullard, the colonel had merely stated to the lawyer
that he thought of building a cotton-mill, but had said nothing about
his broader plan. It was very likely, he recognised, that the people
of Clarendon might not relish the thought that they were regarded as
fit subjects for reform. He knew that they were sensitive, and quick
to resent criticism. If some of them might admit, now and then, among
themselves, that the town was unprogressive, or declining, there was
always some extraneous reason given--the War, the carpetbaggers, the
Fifteenth Amendment, the Negroes. Perhaps not one of them had ever
quite realised the awful handicap of excuses under which they
laboured. Effort was paralysed where failure was so easily explained.

That the condition of the town might be due to causes within
itself--to the general ignorance, self-satisfaction and lack of
enterprise, had occurred to only a favoured few; the younger of these
had moved away, seeking a broader outlook elsewhere; while those who
remained were not yet strong enough nor brave enough to break with the
past and urge new standards of thought and feeling.

So the colonel kept his larger purpose to himself until a time when
greater openness would serve to advance it. Thus Judge Bullard, not
being able to read his client's mind, assumed very naturally that the
contemplated enterprise was to be of a purely commercial nature,
directed to making the most money in the shortest time.

"Some day, Colonel," he said, with this thought in mind, "you might
get a few pointers by running over to Carthage and looking through the
Excelsior Mills. They get more work there for less money than anywhere
else in the South. Last year they declared a forty per cent. dividend.
I know the superintendent, and will give you a letter of introduction,
whenever you like."

The colonel bore the matter in mind, and one morning, a day or two
after his party, set out by train, about eight o'clock in the morning,
for Carthage, armed with a letter from the lawyer to the
superintendent of the mills.

The town was only forty miles away; but a cow had been caught in a
trestle across a ditch, and some time was required for the train crew
to release her. Another stop was made in the middle of a swamp, to put
off a light mulatto who had presumed on his complexion to ride in the
white people's car. He had been successfully spotted, but had
impudently refused to go into the stuffy little clos