. He insisted on
shaking hands with me.

"By the great and everlastin'!" he declared, between laughs, "you're
all right, Ros Paine! I said you was and now I'll swear to it. Told old
Colton to go to the devil! If that ain't--oh, I wish I'd been there!"

I went on sand-papering a valve plug. He walked up and down the floor,
chuckling.

"Well," he said, at last, "you've made yourself solid in Denboro,
anyhow. And I told you you shouldn't lose nothin' by it. The Selectmen
held a meetin' last night and they feel, same as me, that that Shore
Lane shan't be shut off. You understand what that means to you, don't
you?"

I looked at him, coolly.

"No," I answered.

"You don't! It means the town's decided to buy that strip of land of
yours. Definitely decided, practically speakin'. Now what'll you sell it
to us for?"

I put down the valve plug. "Captain," said I, "that land is not for
sale."

"Not for SALE? What do you mean by that?"

"I mean that I have decided not to sell it, for the present, at least.
Neither to Colton nor any one else."

He could not believe it. Of course I would not sell it to Colton. Colton
was a stuck-up, selfish city aristocrat who thought all creation ought
to belong to him. But the town was different. Did I realize that it was
the town I lived in that was asking to buy now? The town of which I was
a citizen? Think of what the town had done for me.

"Very well," I answered. "I'm willing to think. What has it done for
me?"

It had--it had--well, it had done a whole lot. As a citizen of that town
I owed it a--a--

"Look here, Captain Dean," I interrupted, "there's no use in our arguing
the matter. I have decided not to sell."

"Don't talk so foolish. Course you'll sell if you get money enough."

"So Colton said, but I shan't."

"Ros, I ain't got any authority to do it, but I shouldn't wonder if I
could get you three hundred dollars for that strip."

"It isn't a question of price."

"Rubbish! Anything's a question of price."

"This isn't. If it was I probably should have accepted Mr. Colton's
offer of six hundred and fifty."

"Six hun--! Do you mean to say he offered you six hundred and fifty
dollars for that little mite of land, and you never took him up?"

"Yes."

"Well, you must be a . . . Humph! Six hundred and fifty! The town can't
meet no such bid as that, of course."

"I don't expect it to."

He regarded me in silence. He was chagrined and angry; his florid face
was