, I urged upon him,
and after a cigar or so I left him, evidently impressed with this view
of the case, but nevertheless bitterly disappointed. It meant delay and
danger to his hopes; and Jim was not a man to brook delay, or suffer
danger to go unchallenged. I dared not tell him of Cornish's offer, and
of its fate, so similar to his.

"I wonder if it is coquetry on her part," thought I, as I went back with
the fan. "I wonder if it will cause things to go wrong in our business
affairs. I wonder if it is possible for her to be sincerely unable to
make up her mind, or if there is anything in Alice's malign-influence
theory. Anyhow, in the department of Cupid business certainly is picking
up!"

CHAPTER XVI.

Some Things which Happened in Our Halcyon Days.

If there was any tension among us just after the house-warming, it was
not noticeable. Mr. Cornish and Mr. Elkins seemed unaware of their
rivalry. Had either of the two been successful, it might have made
mischief; but as it was, neither felt that his rejection was more than
temporary. Neither knew much of the other's suit, and both seemed full
of hope and good spirits.

Altogether, these were our halcyon days. It seemed to crew and captain a
time for the putting off of armor, and the donning of the garlands of
complacent respite from struggle. The work we had undertaken seemed
accomplished--our village was a city. The great wheel we had set
whirling went spinning on with power. Long ago we had ceased to treat
the matter jocularly; and to regard our operations as applied psychology
only, or as a piratical reunion, no longer occurred to us. There is such
a thing, I believe, as self-hypnotism; but if we knew it, we made no
application of our knowledge to our own condition. This great,
scattered, ebullient town, grown from the drowsy Lattimore of a few
years ago, must surely be, even now, what we had willed it to be: and
therefore, could we not pause and take our ease?

There was the General, of course. He, Jim said, "'knocked' so constantly
as to be sort of ex-officio President of the Boiler-makers' Union," and
talked of the inevitable collapse. But who ever heard of a city built by
people of his way of thinking? And there was Josie Trescott, with her
agreement on broad lines with the General, and her deprecation of the
giving of fortunes to people who had not earned them; but Josie was only
a woman, who, to be sure, knew more of most matters than the rest of