to Lapham that he was not there for the purpose of
interviewing his ancestry. But Bartley had learned
to practise a patience with his victims which he did
not always feel, and to feign an interest in their
digressions till he could bring them up with a round turn.

"I tell you," said Lapham, jabbing the point of his penknife
into the writing-pad on the desk before him, "when I hear
women complaining nowadays that their lives are stunted
and empty, I want to tell 'em about my MOTHER'S life.
I could paint it out for 'em."

Bartley saw his opportunity at the word paint, and cut in.
"And you say, Mr. Lapham, that you discovered this mineral
paint on the old farm yourself?"

Lapham acquiesced in the return to business. "I didn't
discover it," he said scrupulously. "My father found
it one day, in a hole made by a tree blowing down.
There it was, lying loose in the pit, and sticking to the
roots that had pulled up a big, cake of dirt with 'em. I
don't know what give him the idea that there was money
in it, but he did think so from the start. I guess,
if they'd had the word in those days, they'd considered
him pretty much of a crank about it. He was trying
as long as he lived to get that paint introduced;
but he couldn't make it go. The country was so poor they
couldn't paint their houses with anything; and father hadn't
any facilities. It got to be a kind of joke with us;
and I guess that paint-mine did as much as any one thing