e whole field,
and it's big!"

"How did you happen to come here to finance it?"

"I was getting to that. Moliterno himself is as honourable a man
as breathes God's air. But my experience has been that Neapolitan
capitalists are about the cleverest and slipperiest financiers in
the world. We could have financed it twenty times over in Naples
in a day, but neither Moliterno nor I was willing to trust them.
The thing is enormous, you see--a really colossal fortune--and
Italian law is full of ins and outs, and the first man we talked
to confidentially would have given us his word to play straight,
and, the instant we left him, would have flown post-haste for
Basilicata and grabbed for himself the two thirds of the field not
yet in our hands. Moliterno and I talked it over many, many times;
we thought of going to Rome for the money, to Paris, to London, to
New York; but I happened to remember the old house here that my
aunt had left me--I wanted to sell it, to add whatever it brought
to the money I've already put in--and then it struck me I might
raise the rest here as well as anywhere else."

The other nodded. "I understand."

"I suppose you'll think me rather sentimental," Corliss went on,
with a laugh which unexpectedly betrayed a little shyness. "I've
never forgotten that I was born here--was a boy here. In all my
wanderings I've always really thought of this as home."

His voice trembled slightly and his face flushed; he smiled
deprecatingly as though in apology for these symptoms of emotion;
and at that both listeners felt (perhaps with surprise) the man's
strong attraction. There was something very engaging about him: in
the frankness of his look and in the slight tremor in his voice;
there was something appealing and yet manly in the confession, by
this thoroughgoing cosmopolite, of his real feeling for the
home-town.

"Of course I know how very few people, even among the `old
citizens,' would have any recollection whatever of me," he went
on; "but that doesn't make any difference in my sentiment for the
place and its people. That street out yonder was named for my
grandfather: there's a statue of my great uncle in the State House
yard; all my own blood: belonged here, and though I have been a
wanderer and may not be remembered--naturally am _not_
remembered--yet the name is honoured here, and I--I----" He
faltered again, then concluded with quiet earnestness: "I thought
that if my good luck was destined to