w I loathe this pokey, dead old village!" he complained. "And what
wouldn't I give to be back with the old Leyden crowd for one little
night!"

He lurched over to the piano, sat carelessly, sidewise, on its stool,
and, thrumming at the keyboard, fell to humming in a slurring,
reminiscent fashion, the old Leyden University chorus:

"_Ach, daar koonet ye amuseeren! Io vivat--Io vivat
Nostorum sanitas, hoc estamoris porculum,
Dolores est anti gotum--Io vivat--Io vivat
Nostorum sanitas--!_

"Say, Hartmann," he broke off from his jumble of Dutch and Hollandised
Latin, "the old man is aging. He's aging fast."

"Who?" asked Hartmann absently, glancing up from his work. "Oh, your
uncle? Yes, he is mellowing. He is changing foliage with the years."

"Changing foliage? Not he. He changes nothing. What was good enough
forty years ago seems to him quite good enough to-day. He's as
old-fashioned as his hats. And they're the oldest things since Noah's
time. He's just as old-fashioned in his financial ways. In my opinion,
for instance, this would be a capital time to sell out the business. But
he----"

"Sell out?" echoed Hartmann in genuine horror. "Sell out a business
that's been in his family for--why, man, he'd as soon sell his soul.
This business is his religion."

"Yes, and that's why it is so flourishing in spite of his back-date
customs. It's at the very acme of its prosperity now. Why, the plant
must be worth an easy half million. Yes, and more. Lord, but it _would_
sell now! One, two, three,--_Augenblick!_ By the way, speaking of
selling,--what was the last offer the dear old gentleman turned down
from Hicks of Rochester?"

But Hartmann did not hear the question. He was staring at Frederik in
open-mouthed astonishment.

"Sell out?" he repeated dully. "This is a new one--even from you. There
isn't a day your uncle doesn't tell me how triumphantly you are going to
carry on the business after he is gone. He----"

"Oh, I am!" sneered Frederik. "I am. Of course I am. How can you doubt
it. Wait and see. It's a big name--'Peter Grimm.' And the old gentleman
knows his business. He assuredly knows his business."

"I don't mind being the repository of your confidences about hating
work," burst out Hartmann, "any more than I mind listening to the mewing
of a sick cat. But when you strike this new vein, you'll have to choose
another audience. I'm afraid I'd be likely to take sudden charge of the
meeting and break t