guess—too far from market—but comfortable. Never saw so many kids in my life.”
“They raise flocks?” inquired the Commissioner.
“Ho, ho! I mean two-legged kids,” laughed the surveyor; “two-legged, and bare-legged, and tow-headed.”
“Children! oh, children!” mused the Commissioner, as though a new view had opened to him; “they raise children!”
“It’s a lonesome country, Commissioner,” said the surveyor. “Can you blame ’em?”
“I suppose,” continued the Commissioner, slowly, as one carefully pursues deductions from a new, stupendous theory, “not all of them are tow-headed. It would not be unreasonable, Mr. Ashe, I conjecture, to believe that a portion of them have brown, or even black, hair.”
“Brown and black, sure,” said Ashe; “also red.”
“No doubt,” said the Commissioner. “Well, I thank you for your courtesy in informing me, Mr. Ashe. I will not detain you any longer from your duties.”
Later, in the afternoon, came Hamlin and Avery, big, handsome, genial, sauntering men, clothed in white duck and low-cut shoes. They permeated the whole office with an aura of debonair prosperity. They passed among the clerks and left a wake of abbreviated given names and fat brown cigars.
These were the aristocracy of the land-sharks, who went in for big things. Full of serene confidence in themselves, there was no corporation, no syndicate, no railroad company or attorney general too big for them to
