nnoyance for another matter.

"I want your opinion on the coffee," he said lightly. "It came from the
Jungus valley in Bolivia. Men who have drunk it there are not satisfied
with any other. In the local market it is costly and as an export it is
unattainable."

"Yet you have obtained it," smiled the secretary. "How?"

Burton laughed. "I wanted it," he announced briefly. "So I got it."

"Mr. Burton," the younger man spoke hesitantly, "you look very fit and
seem absolutely on edge, but I'm afraid you're rather overdoing things.
I don't mean any impertinence of suggestion, but the trout are jumping
in the mountain brooks just now. Can't you drop things for a few days
and climb into a flannel shirt--and rest? You could go somewhere where
the leaves are rustling in the woods and things are as God made them,
close to His immortal granite. I don't want to see you break yourself
down."

Hamilton Burton was looking at the percolator in which the Bolivian
coffee was bubbling as restively as the fires of the volcano at whose
base it grew from berry to lush plant and came again to berry. He was
balancing a spoon on his forefinger, and smiling with quiet amusement.

"Now that's very thoughtful of our young Minister of Finance." He spoke
softly as the fugitive smile played around the corners of his lips.
"Very thoughtful indeed, but the suggestion is, after all, unavailable."
He paused, and the smile died. "I don't think I've ever become
autobiographical with you, have I, Carl?"

The secretary shook his head. "But, of course, you know I should feel
honored at any time you did," he declared with whole-hearted and boyish
enthusiasm.

"Very well. Until I was sixteen years old I lived very close to
mountains built of God's immortal granite. Whenever I went out to do my
chores I barked my shins on God's immortal granite. Whenever I plowed I
had to do acrobatics to save as much of the plowshare as possible from
God's immortal granite. It's all very pastoral to talk about milk fresh
from the sweet-breathed cow, but for ten years I was lady's maid to two
singularly repulsive cows--and in time they cloyed upon me. Whenever
those Juno-eyed kine lowed for a drink of water, it was up to me to
hustle out and serve them--and I never got a tip for my service. To this
good day, Carl, the sight of a cow gives me cramps in the fingers and
melancholy in the soul. Henceforth I'll take my milk in hermetically
sealed jars from one of my own model