ur hobby. They were bored. They
didn't really want to know after all. It was like trying to tell folks
about your travels.

But he was astonished to the limit of astonishment by what Mr. Welles
brought out in the silence which finally dropped between them. The old
man looked at him very hard and asked, "Mr. Crittenden, do you know
anything about the treatment of the Negroes in the South?"

Neale sat up blinking. "Why no, nothing special, except that it's a
fearful knot we don't seem to get untied," he said. "I contribute to the
support of an agricultural school in Georgia, but I'm afraid I never
take much time to read the reports they send me. Why do you ask?"

"Oh, no particular reason. I have a relative down there, that's all."

Marise and the others came out of a door at the far-end of the building
now, and advanced towards them slowly. Neale and Mr. Welles watched
them.

Neale was struck again by Marsh's appearance. As far away as you could
see him, he held the eye. "An unusual man, your friend Mr. Marsh," he
remarked. "Mrs. Crittenden tells me that he is one of the people who
have been everywhere and done everything and seen everybody. He looks
the part."

Mr. Welles made no comment on this for a moment, his eyes on the
advancing group. Marise had raised her parasol of yellow silk. It made a
shimmering halo for her dark, gleaming hair, as she turned her head
towards Marsh, her eyes narrowed and shining as she laughed at something
he said.

Then the old man remarked, "Yes, he's unusual, all right, Vincent is. He
has his father's energy and push." He added in a final characterization,
"I've known him ever since he was a little boy, and I never knew him not
to get what he went after."

II

_How the Same Thing Looked to Mr. Welles_

As they walked along towards the mill, Mr. Welles had a distinct
impression that he was going to dislike the mill-owner, and as distinct
a certainty as to where that impression came from. He had received too
many by the same route not to recognize the shipping label. Not that
Vincent had ever said a single slighting word about Mr. Crittenden. He
couldn't have, very well, since they neither of them had ever laid eyes
on him. But Vincent never needed words to convey impressions into other
people's minds. He had a thousand other ways better than words. Vincent
could be silent, knock off the ashes from his cigarette, recross his
legs, and lean back in his chair in a manner that s