ers give you their co-operation?

"The spirit of your plan is certainly beyond criticism. It seeks a
common welfare. It does not offer swift enrichment to the moneyed few
through the use of ignorant labor unlifted from destitution and
degradation, but rather the remuneration of capital through the social
betterment of all the factors of a complete community. But will the plan
itself pay? Have not the things around you which paid been those which
cared little if savings-bank, church or school lived or died, or whether
laws or customs favored them?

"Suppose that on your own lands your colony should seem for a time to
succeed, would you not be an island in an ocean of misunderstanding and
indifference? If you should need an act of county or township
legislation, could you get it? Is this not why capital seeks wilder and
more distant regions when it would rather be in Dixie?

"I make these points not for their own sake, but to introduce a
practical suggestion which my father is tempted to submit to you. And
this, it may surprise you to find, is based upon the contents of the
paper handed you as I was leaving Suez, by the colored man, Leggett,
whose peculiar station doubtless makes it easy for him to see relations
and necessities which better or wiser men, from other points of view,
might easily overlook.

"This man would make your scheme as public as you would make it private,
and my father is inclined to think that if public interest, action, and
credit could be enlisted as suggested in Leggett's memorandum, your
problem would have new attractions much beyond its present merely
problematic interest, and might find financial backers. Alliance with
Leggett is, of course, out of the question; but if you can consent and
undertake to exploit your lands on the line of operation sketched by him
we can guarantee the pecuniary support necessary to the effort, and you
may at once draw on us at sight for the small sum mentioned in your
letter, if your need is still urgent. With cordial regard,

"Yours faithfully,

"HENRY FAIR."

March started up, but sat again and gazed at the missive.

"Well, I will swear!" He smiled, held it at arm's length, and read again
facetiously. "'Alliance with Leggett is, of course, out of the question;
but if you can consent and undertake to exploit your lands on the line
of operation sketched by him----'

"Now, where's that nigger's letter?--I wonder if I--" a knock at the
door--"come