"What I was leadin' up to," resumed Mr. Harum after a moment, "is this: I ben thinkin' about it fer some time, but I haven't wanted to speak to ye about it before. In fact, I might 'a' put it off some longer if things wa'n't as they are, but the fact o' the matter is that I'm goin'

to take down my sign."

John looked at him in undisguised amazement, not unmixed with consternation.

"Yes," said David, obviously avoiding the other's eye, "'David Harum, Banker,' is goin' to come down. I'm gettin' to be an' old man," he went on, "an' what with some investments I've got, an' a hoss-trade once in a while, I guess I c'n manage to keep the fire goin' in the kitchin stove fer Polly an' me, an' the' ain't no reason why I sh'd keep my sign up much of any longer. Of course," he said, "if I was to go on as I be now I'd want ye to stay jest as you are; but, as I was sayin', you're to a consid'able extent independent. You hain't no speciul ties to keep ye, an' you ought anyway, as I said before, to be doin' better for yourself than jest drawin' pay in a country bank."

One of the most impressive morals drawn from the fairy tales of our childhood, and indeed from the literature and experience of our later periods of life, is that the fulfilment of wishes is often attended by the most unwelcome results. There had been a great many times when to our friend the possibility of being able to bid farewell to Homeville had seemed the most desirable of things, but confronted with the idea as a reality--for what other construction could he put upon David's words except that they amounted practically to a dismissal, though a most kind one?--he found himself simply in dismay.

"I suppose," he said after a few moments, "that by 'taking down your sign' you mean going out of business--"

"Figger o' speech," explained David.

"--and your determination is not only a great surprise to me, but grieves me very much. I am very sorry to hear it--more sorry than I can tell you. As you remind me, if I leave Homeville I shall not go almost penniless as I came, but I shall leave with great regret, and, indeed--Ah, well--" he broke off with a wave of his hands.

"What was you goin' to say?" asked David, after a moment, his eyes on the horizon.

"I can't say very much more," replied the young man, "than that I am very sorry. There have been times," he added, "as you may understand, when I have been restless and discouraged for a while, particularly at first; but I can see now that, on the whole, I have been far from unhappy here. Your house has grown to be more a real home than any I have ever known, and you and your sister are like my own people. What you say, that I ought not to look forward to spending my life behind the counter of a village bank on a salary, may be true; but I am not, at present at least, a very ambitious person, nor, I am afraid, a very clever one in the way of getting on in the world; and the idea of breaking out for myself, even if that were all to be considered, is not a cheerful one. I am afraid all this sounds rather selfish to you, when, as I can see, you have deferred your plans for my sake, and after all else that you have done for me."

"I guess I sha'n't lay it up agin ye," said David quietly.

They drove along in silence for a while.

"May I ask," said John, at length, "when you intend to 'take down your sign,' as you put it?"

"Whenever you say the word," declared David, with a chuckle and a side glance at his companion. John turned in bewilderment.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Wa'al," said David with another short laugh, "fur 's the sign 's concerned, I s'pose we _could_ stick a new one over it, but I guess it might 's well come down; but we'll settle that matter later on."

John still looked at the speaker in utter perplexity, until the latter broke out into a laugh.

"Got any idee what's goin' onto the new sign?" he asked.

"You don't mean----"

"Yes, I do," declared Mr. Harum, "an' my notion 's this, an' don't you say aye, yes, nor no till I git through," and he laid his left hand restrainingly on John's knee.

"The new sign 'll read 'Harum & Comp'ny,' or 'Harum & Lenox,' jest as you elect. You c'n put in what money you got an' I'll put in as much more, which 'll make cap'tal enough in gen'ral, an' any extry money that's needed--wa'al, up to a certain point, I guess I c'n manage. Now putty much all the new bus'nis has come in through you, an' practically you got the hull thing in your hands. You'll do the work about 's you're doin' now, an' you'll draw the same sal'ry; an' after that's paid we'll go snucks on anythin' that's left--that _is_," added David with a chuckle, "if you feel that you c'n _stan'_ it in Homeville."

"I wish you was married to one of our Homeville girls, though," declared Mr. Harum later on as they drove homeward.

CHAPTER XLIV.

Since the whooping-cough and measles of childhood the junior partner of Harum & Company had never to his recollection had a day's illness in his life, and he fought the attack which came upon him about the first week in December with a sort of incredulous disgust, until one morning when he did not appear at breakfast. He spent the next week in bed, and at the end of that time, while he was able to be about, it was in a languid and spiritless fashion, and he was shaken and exasperated by a persistent cough. The season was and had been unusually inclement even for that region, where the thermometer sometimes changes fifty degrees in thirty-six hours; and at the time of his release from his room there was a period of successive changes of temperature from thawing to zero and below, a characteristic of the winter climate of Homeville and its vicinity. Dr. Hayes exhibited the inevitable quinine, iron, and all the tonics in his pharmacopoeia, with cough mixtures and sundry, but in vain. Aunt Polly pressed bottles of sovereign decoctions and infusions upon him--which were received with thanks and neglected with the blackest ingrat.i.tude--and exhausted not only the markets of Homeville, but her own and Sairy's culinary resources (no mean ones, by the way) to tempt the appet.i.te which would not respond. One week followed another without any improvement in his condition; and indeed as time went on he fell into a condition of irritable listlessness which filled his partner with concern.

"What's the matter with him, Doc?" said David to the physician. "He don't seem to take no more int'rist than a foundered hoss. Can't ye do nothin' for him?"

"Not much use dosin' him," replied the doctor. "Pull out all right, may be, come warm weather. Big strong fellow, but this cussed influenzy, or grip, as they call it, sometimes. .h.i.ts them hardest."

"Wa'al, warm weather 's some way off," remarked Mr. Harum, "an' he coughs enough to tear his head off sometimes."

The doctor nodded. "Ought to clear out somewhere," he said. "Don't like that cough myself."

"What do you mean?" asked David.

"Ought to go 'way for a spell," said the doctor; "quit working, and get a change of climate."

"Have you told him so?" asked Mr. Harum.

"Yes," replied the doctor; "said he couldn't get away."

"H'm'm!" said David thoughtfully, pinching his lower lip between his thumb and finger.

A day or two after the foregoing interview, John came in and laid an open letter in front of David, who was at his desk, and dropped languidly into a chair without speaking. Mr. Harum read the letter, smiled a little, and turning in his chair, took off his gla.s.ses and looked at the young man, who was staring abstractedly at the floor.

"I ben rather expectin' you'd git somethin' like this. What be you goin'

to do about it?"

"I don't know," replied John. "I don't like the idea of leasing the property in any case, and certainly not on the terms they offer; but it is lying idle, and I'm paying taxes on it----"

"Wa'al, as I said, I ben expectin' fer some time they'd be after ye in some shape. You got this this mornin'?"

"Yes."

"I expect you'd sell the prop'ty if you got a good chance, wouldn't ye?"

"With the utmost pleasure," said John emphatically.

"Wa'al, I've got a notion they'll buy it of ye," said David, "if it's handled right. I wouldn't lease it if it was mine an' I wanted to sell it, an' yet, in the long run, you might git more out of it--an' then agin you mightn't," he added.

"I don't know anything about it," said John, putting his handkerchief to his mouth in a fit of coughing. David looked at him with a frown.

"I ben aware fer some time that the' was a movement on foot in your direction," he said. "You know I told ye that I'd ben int'ristid in the oil bus'nis once on a time; an' I hain't never quite lost my int'rist, though it hain't ben a very active one lately, an' some fellers down there have kep' me posted some. The' 's ben oil found near where you're located, an' the prospectin' points your way. The hull thing has ben kep' as close as possible, an' the holes has ben plugged, but the oil is there somewhere. Now it's like this: If you lease on shares an' they strike the oil on your prop'ty, mebbe it'll bring you more money; but they might strike, an' agin they mightn't. Sometimes you git a payin'

well an' a dry hole only a few hunderd feet apart. Nevertheless they want to drill your prop'ty. I know who the parties is. These fellers that wrote this letter are simply actin' for 'em."

The speaker was interrupted by another fit of coughing, which left the sufferer very red in the face, and elicited from him the word which is always greeted with laughter in a theater.

"Say," said David, after a moment, in which he looked anxiously at his companion, "I don't like that cough o' your'n."

"I don't thoroughly enjoy it myself," was the rejoinder.

"Seems to be kind o' growin' on ye, don't it?"