boys come in from the country. Toll, lock the
door."

Mr. Talbot locked the door and resumed his seat.

"Sevenoaks be hanged!" said Mr. Belcher.

"Certainly."

"It's a one-horse town."

"Certainly. Still, I have been under the impression that you owned the
horse."

"Yes, I know, but the horse is played out."

"Hasn't he been a pretty good horse, and earned you all he cost you?"

"Well, I'm tired with living where there is so much infernal babble, and
meddling with other people's business. If I sneeze, the people think
there's been an earthquake; and when I whistle, they call it a
hurricane."

"But you're the king of the roost," said Talbot.

"Yes; but a man gets tired being king of the roost, and longs for some
rooster to fight."

Mr. Talbot saw the point toward which Mr. Belcher was drifting, and
prepared himself for it. He had measured his chances for losing his
business, and when, at last, his principal came out with the frank
statement, that he had made up his mind to come to New York to live, he
was all ready with his overjoyed "No!" and with his smooth little hand
to bestow upon Mr. Belcher's heavy fist the expression of his gladness
and his congratulations.

"Good thing, isn't it, Toll?"

"Excellent!"

"And you'll stand by me, Toll?"

"Of course I will; but we can't do just the old things, you know. We
must be highly respectable citizens, and keep ourselves straight."

"Don't you undertake to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs,"
responded the proprietor with a huge laugh, in which the factor joined.
Then he added, thoughtfully: "I haven't said a word to the woman about
it, and she may make a fuss, but she knows me pretty well; and there'll
be the biggest kind of a row in the town; but the fact is, Toll, I'm at
the end of my rope there. I'm making money hand over hand, and I've
nothing to show for it. I've spent about everything I can up there, and
nobody sees it. I might just as well be buried; and if a fellow can't
show what he gets, what's the use of having it? I haven't but one life
to live, and I'm going to spread, and I'm going to do it right here in
New York; and if I don't make some of your nabobs open their eyes, my
name isn't Robert Belcher."

Mr. Belcher had exposed motives in this little speech that he had not
even alluded to in his addresses to his image in the mirror. Talbot saw
that something had gone wrong in the town, that he was playing off a bit
of revenge, and, abo