In an instant the colonel's old manner returned.

"May you come in, Nancy? Why, you dear woman, if you had stayed away
five minutes longer I should have gone for you myself. What! Another
skein of yarn?"

"Yes," she said, seating herself. "Hold out your hands."

The loop slipped so easily over the colonel's arms that it was quite
evident that the role was not new to him.

"Befo' I forget it, Nancy, Mr. Fitzpatrick was called suddenly away
to attend to some business connected with my railroad, and left his
vehy kindest regards for you, and his apologies for not seein' you
befo' he left."

Fitz had said nothing that resembled this, so far as my memory served
me, but it was what he ought to have done, and the colonel always
corrected such little slips of courtesy by supplying them himself.

"Politeness," he would sometimes say, "is becomin' rarer every day.
I tell you, suh, the disease of bad manners is mo' contagious than the
small-pox."

So the deception was quite pardonable in him.

"And what does Mr. Fitzpatrick think of the success of your enterprise,
George?"

The colonel sailed away as usual with all his balloon topsails set,