.

It was a beautiful clear, cool morning, and the sea at their left
sparkled brilliantly in its sapphire splendor. To the right of the
carriage road were attractive cottages, overgrown with blooming
_bougainvillea_ or other less spectacular foliage. Every now and then a
more pretentious mansion appeared, built on some elevation which
commanded a view of the water on either side, and surrounded by heavy
clumps of cedar and fan-leaved palmettos. Frequently the road passed
between high walls of solid coral limestone, from the crevices of which
the ever-decorative Bermuda vegetation showed scarlet, orange and purple
blooms against the green.

"There must be something more than sentiment," Thatcher commented. "I
suspect that we shall uncover some large personal interests here which
have been strong enough to protect themselves--"

"And find concealment behind the convenient screen of sentimentality,"
completed Cosden.

"Exactly. I wouldn't spend any time on it at all except that it seems so
important to the people themselves."

Cosden laughed so spontaneously that Thatcher looked up quickly, trying
to grasp the unintended humor in his last remark. His companion was
hugely amused and made no effort to conceal it.

"Well?" Thatcher interrogated good-naturedly; "aren't you going to let
me in on it?"

"It's funny, that's all," Cosden replied; "but it's perfectly good
business either way you work it. Simply a question of how you sit when
you have your picture taken."

Thatcher's face demanded further explanation, but before Cosden spoke
again by way of enlightenment his amused expression disappeared, and he
became serious.

"I don't know as it is so funny, after all," he said. "When you spoke of
being interested in this trolley scheme principally because it was so
important to the people, I couldn't help thinking how inconsistent you
were."

"Inconsistent?" Thatcher echoed.

"Suppose you owned that line of stage-coaches, and leased it out just as
you do these machines. Then some men came along and proposed to build a
trolley-line which would push the stage-coaches off the map. That's what
our new machines will do to your old ones. In one case you're interested
in the improved method because it is so important to the people; in the
other you say, 'The people be damned.' But you're no different from the
rest of us. Our so-called consistency is as full of holes as a sieve;
but it's always the other fellow who sees it