ght out. Ever see Bernhardt in 'L'Etrangere'? Well, the American
husband is old Dryfoos all over; no mustache; and hay-colored
chin-whiskers cut slanting froze the corners of his mouth. He cocked
his little gray eyes at me, and says he: 'Yes, young man; my name
is Dryfoos, and I'm from Moffitt. But I don't want no present of
Longfellow's Works, illustrated; and I don't want to taste no fine teas;
but I know a policeman that does; and if you're the son of my old friend
Squire Strohfeldt, you'd better get out.' 'Well, then,' said I, 'how
would you like to go into the newspaper syndicate business?' He gave
another look at me, and then he burst out laughing, and he grabbed my
hand, and he just froze to it. I never saw anybody so glad.

"Well, the long and the short of it was that I asked him round here to
Maroni's to dinner; and before we broke up for the night we had settled
the financial side of the plan that's brought you to New York."

"I can see," said Fulkerson, who had kept his eyes fast on March's face,
"that you don't more than half like the idea of Dryfoos. It ought to
give you more confidence in the thing than you ever had. You needn't be
afraid," he added, with some feeling, "that I talked Dryfoos into the
thing for my own advantage."

"Oh, my dear Fulkerson!" March protested, all the more fervently because
he was really a little guilty.

"Well, of course not! I didn't mean you were. But I just happened to
tell him what I wanted to go into when I could see my way to it, and he
caught on of his own accord. The fact is," said Fulkerson, "I guess I'd
better make a clean breast of it, now I'm at it, Dryfoos wanted to get
something for that boy of his to do. He's in railroads himself, and he's
in mines and other things, and he keeps busy, and he can't bear to have
his boy hanging round the house doing nothing, like as if he was a girl.
I told him that the great object of a rich man was to get his son into
just that fix, but he couldn't seem to see it, and the boy hated it
himself. He's got a good head, and he wanted to study for the ministry
when they were all living together out on the farm; but his father had
the old-fashioned ideas about that. You know they used to think that any
sort of stuff was good enough to make a preacher out of; but they wanted
the good timber for business; and so the old man wouldn't let him.
You'll see the fellow; you'll like him; he's no fool, I can tell you;
and he's going to be our