out of the spoon upon his gray tweed trousers.

"I'd be a wonderful ass not to take advantage of Judge Nickols Powers'
brain and money, plus Gregory Goodloe's brain and training and money
combined, to get a result that will be worth a hundred thousand dollars
to me and all the fame I can conveniently wear. Encourage 'em? Just
watch me! Only what the judge thinks will take two years can be done in
one season if we get experts down to do it, which we will. Trees two
hundred years old _can_ be moved for a few thousand dollars, as well as
plants in bloom that would require years to transplant. I know the man
to do it: Wilkerson of White Plains. I'll telegraph him in the
morning."

"He won't interfere with--with father, will he?" I asked anxiously.

"Not a bit--he'll just make what the judge and Gregory plan for year
after next, grow and bloom there in a couple of months. Wilkerson is not
a creator, he's just nature keyed up to the _n_th power. And also I'll
give him for a bait the Jeffries estate I was hesitating about making a
bid for. All the big fellows are after it. Old man Jeffries has made two
barrels of money in the last ten years in oil and he is going to build
an estate up on the Hudson that will make the world gasp. I hadn't put
in a bid, but this idea of the judge's and Greg's, with the whole
village grouped about it, has given me the keynote to win the thing from
the whole bunch of American architects. He wants the village built as
well as the estate. That American garden idea will bowl him over. He's
progressively and rabidly American. The bids don't close until December,
so I'll have time to get real photographs and sketches. Me for the
reformed judge and the parson!"