and by an affair of the heart. Moreover, at that
time such praise as she gave him would not have been thought
extravagant in almost any social gathering in Lattimore. Let me confess
that to me it does not now seem so ... Cecil Barr-Smith walked out and
stood on the platform.

General Lattimore was apparently thinking of the features of the
situation which had struck Antonia as romantic.

"You young men," said he, "are among the last of the city-builders and
road-makers. My generation did these things differently. We went out
with arms in our hands, and hewed out spaces in savagery for homes. You
don't seem to see it; but you are straining every nerve merely to shift
people from many places to one, and there to exploit them. You wind your
coils about an inert mass, you set the dynamo of your power of
organization at work, and the inert mass becomes a great magnet. People
come flying to it from the four quarters of the earth, and the
first-comers levy tribute upon them, as the price of standing-room on
the magnet!"

"I nevah hea'd the real merit and strength and safety of ouah
real-estate propositions bettah stated, suh!" said Captain Tolliver
ecstatically.

Jim stood looking at the General with sober regard.

"Go on, General," said he.

"Not only that," went on the General, "but people begin forestalling the
standing-room, so as to make it scarcer. They gamble on the power of the
magnet, and the length of time it will draw. They buy to-day and sell
to-morrow; or cast up what they imagine they might sell for, and call
the increase profit. Then comes the time when the magnet ceases to draw,
or the forestallers, having, in their greed, grasped more than they can
keep, offer too much for the failing market, and all at once the thing
stops, and the dervish-dance ends in coma, in cold forms and still
hands, in misery and extinction!"

There was a pause, during which the old soldier sat looking out of the
widow, no one else finding aught to say. Elkins remained standing, and
once or twice gave that little movement of the head which precedes
speech, but said nothing. Cornish smiled sardonically. Josie looked
anxiously at Jim, apprehensive as to how he would take it. At last it
was Ballard the conservative who broke silence.

"I hope, General," said he, "that our little movement won't develop into
a dervish-dance. Anyhow, you will join in our congratulations upon the
completion of the railroad. You know you once did som