es. Then his girls had begun to make fun of it; and
though he did not mind Penelope's jokes much, he did not like to see
that Irene's gentility was wounded. Business friends met him with the
kind of knowing smile about it that implied their sense of the
fraudulent character of its praise--the smile of men who had been there
and who knew how it was themselves. Lapham had his misgivings as to
how his clerks and underlings looked at it; he treated them with
stately severity for a while after it came out, and he ended by feeling
rather sore about it. He took it for granted that everybody had read
it.

"I don't know what you mean," replied Corey, "I don't see the Events
regularly."

"Oh, it was nothing. They sent a fellow down here to interview me, and
he got everything about as twisted as he could."

"I believe they always do," said Corey. "I hadn't seen it. Perhaps it
came out before I got home."

"Perhaps it did."

"My notion of making myself useful to you was based on a hint I got
from one of your own circulars."

Lapham was proud of those circulars; he thought they read very well.
"What was that?"

"I could put a little capital into the business," said Corey, with the
tentative accent of a man who chances a thing. "I've got a little
money, but I didn't imagine you cared for anything of that kind."

"No, sir, I don't," returned the Colonel bluntly. "I've had one
partner, and one's enough."

"Yes," assented the young man, who doubtless had his own ideas as to
eventualities--or perhaps rather had the vague hopes of youth. "I
didn't come to propose a partnership. But I see that you are
introducing your paint into the foreign markets, and there I really
thought I might be of use to you, and to myself too."

"How?" asked the Colonel scantly.

"Well, I know two or three languages pretty well. I know French, and I
know German, and I've got a pretty fair sprinkling of Spanish."

"You mean that you can talk them?" asked the Colonel, with the mingled
awe and slight that such a man feels for such accomplishments. "Yes;
and I can write an intelligible letter in either of them."

Lapham rubbed his nose. "It's easy enough to get all the letters we
want translated."

"Well," pursued Corey, not showing his discouragement if he felt any,
"I know the countries where you want to introduce this paint of yours.
I've been there. I've been in Germany and France and I've been in
South America and Mexico; I've b