I guess we have, about the biggest
escape--what have I got ag'in' him, anyway? I'd ought to feel good to
him; and I guess that's the way I did feel, come to boil it down. He's
got a way with him, you know, when you're with him, that makes you like
him. He may have a knife in your ribs the whole while, but so long's he
don't turn it, you don't seem to know it, and you can't help likin' him.
Why, I hadn't been with Jeff five minutes before I made up my mind to
sell to him. I told him about the other offer--felt bound to do it--and
he was all on fire. 'I want that place, Mr. Whitwell,' s'd he. 'Name your
price.' Well, I wa'n't goin' to take an advantage of the feller, and I
guess he see it. 'You've offered me three thousand,' s'd I, 'n' I don't
want to be no ways mean about it. Five thousand buys the place.' 'It's
mine,' s'd he; just like that. I guess he see he had a gentleman to deal
with, and we didn't say a word more. Don't you think I done right to sell
to him? I couldn't 'a' got more'n thirty-five hundred out the other
feller, to save me, and before Jeff begun his improvements I couldn't 'a'
realized a thousand dollars on the prop'ty."

"I think you did right to sell to him," said Westover, saddened somewhat
by the proof Whitwell alleged of his magnanimity.

"Well, Sir, I'm glad you do. I don't believe in crowdin' a man because
you got him in a corner, an' I don't believe in bearin' malice. Never
did. All I wanted was what the place was wo'th--to him. 'Twa'n't wo'th
nothin' to me! He's got the house and the ten acres around it, and he's
got the house on Lion's Head, includin' the Clearin', that the poottiest
picnic-ground in the mountains. Think of goin' up there this summer?"

"No," said Westover, briefly.

"Well, I some wish you did. I sh'd like to know how Jeff's improvements
struck you. Of course, I can't judge of 'em so well, but I guess he's
made a pootty sightly thing of it. He told me he'd had one of the leadin'
Boston architects to plan the thing out for him, and I tell you he's got
something nice. 'Tain't so big as old Lion's Head, and Jeff wants to
cater to a different style of custom, anyway. The buildin's longer'n what
she is deep, and she spreads in front so's to give as many rooms a view
of the mountain as she can. Know what 'runnaysonce' is? Well, that's the
style Jeff said it was; it's all pillars and pilasters; and you ride up
to the office through a double row of colyums, under a kind of a portic