speech; and in brief, he is an
enterprising idiot with a mania for work-baskets."

Her face was in the shadow.

"You say the--idiot--is enterprising?" she inquired.

"Far more enterprising and far less idiot than I. They are looking
for oil down there, and when he came he knew less about oil than a
kindergarten babe, and spoke of 'boring for kerosene' in his first
letter to me; but he knows it all now, and writes long and convincing
geological arguments. If a well comes in, he is prepared to get out an
extra! Perhaps you may understand what that means in Plattville, with
the 'Herald's' numerous forces. I owe him everything, even the shares in
the oil company, which he has persuaded me to take. And he is going to
dare to make the 'Herald' a daily. Do you remember asking me why I had
never done that? It seemed rather a venture to try to compete with the
Rouen papers in offering State and foreign news, but this young
Gulliver has tacked onto the Associated Press, and means to print a
quarto--that's eight pages, you know--once a week, Saturday, and a
double sheet, four pages, on other mornings. The daily venture begins
next Monday."

"Will it succeed?"

"Oh, no!" he laughed.

"You think not?" Her interest in this dull business struck him as
astonishing, and yet in character with her as he had known her in
Plattville. Then he wondered unhappily if she thought that talking
of the "Herald" and learning things about the working of a country
newspaper would help her to understand Brainard Macauley.

"Why have you let him go on with it?" she asked. "I suppose you have
encouraged him?"

"Oh, yes, I encouraged him. The creature's recklessness fascinated me. A
dare-devil like that is always charming.'"

"You think there is no chance for the creature's succeeding with the
daily?"

"None," he replied indifferently.

"You mentioned work-baskets, I think?"

He laughed again. "I believe him to be the original wooden-nutmeg man.
Once a week he produces a 'Woman's Page,' wherein he presents to the
Carlow female public three methods for making currant jelly, three
receipts for the concoction of salads, and directs the ladies how to
manufacture a pretty work-basket out of odd scraps in twenty minutes.
The astonishing part of it is that he has not yet been mobbed by the
women who have followed his directions."

"So you think the daily is a mistake and that your enterprising idiot
should be mobbed? Why?" She seemed to be taki