drummers put up. Good sample-rooms an' fine country cookin'."

Mostyn held on to his bag, which the swarthy hands were grasping. "No,
I'm not going to stop," he explained. "I'm going out to Drake's farm."

"Oh, _is_ you? Well, suh, Mr. John Webb is in de freight depot. I done
hear 'im say he fetched de buggy ter tek somebody out."

At this juncture the florid and flushed face of Webb was seen as he
emerged from the doorway of the depot. He was bent under a weighty bag
of flour, and smiled and waved his hat by way of salutation as he
advanced to a buggy at a public hitching-rack and deposited his burden
in the receptacle behind the single seat. This done, he came forward,
brushing the sleeve of his alpaca coat and grinning jovially.

"How are you?" He extended a fat, perspiring hand luckily powdered
with flour. "I reckon you won't mind riding out with me. Tom said he'd
bet you'd rather walk to limber up your legs, but Lucy made me fetch
the buggy along, as some said you wasn't as well as common. But you
look all right to me-that is, as well as _any_ of you city fellers
ever do. The last one of you look as white as convicts out o' jail. I
reckon thar is so much smoke over your town that the sun don't strike
it good and straight."

"Oh, I'm all right," Mostyn said, good-naturedly, "just a little run
down from overwork, that's all."

"Run down?" Webb seemed quite concerned with getting at the exact
meaning of the statement, and as he took Mostyn's bag and put it in
with the flour he eyed the banker attentively. _"Run down?"_ he