and respect as though she were a sweetheart, or a guest in his house, and
she, unlike most of the wives in Caxton, never ventured to question his
goings and comings, but left him free to live his own life in his own way
while she attended to the millinery business.

At the age of forty-five John Telfer was a tall, slender, fine looking
man, with black hair and a little black pointed beard, and with something
lazy and care-free in his every movement and impulse. Dressed in white
flannels, with white shoes, a jaunty cap upon his head, eyeglasses hanging
from a gold chain, and a cane lightly swinging from his hand, he made a
figure that might have passed unnoticed on the promenade before some
fashionable summer hotel, but that seemed a breach of the laws of nature
when seen on the streets of a corn-shipping town in Iowa. And Telfer was
aware of the extraordinary figure he cut; it was a part of his programme
of life. Now as Sam approached he laid a hand on Freedom Smith's shoulder
to check the song, and, with his eyes twinkling with good-humour, began
thrusting with his cane at the boy's feet.

"He will never be ruler of the queen's navee," he declared, laughing and
following the dancing boy about in a wide circle. "He is a little mole
that works underground intent upon worms. The trick he has of tilting up
his nose is only his way of smelling out stray pennies. I have it from
Banker Walker that he brings a basket of them into the bank every day. One
of these days he will buy the town and put it into his vest pocket."

Circling about on the stone sidewalk and dancing to escape the flying
cane, Sam dodged under the arm of Valmore, a huge old blacksmith with
shaggy clumps of hair on the back of his hands, and sought refuge between
him and Freedom Smith. The blacksmith's hand stole out and lay upon the
boy's shoulder. Telfer, his legs spread apart and the cane hooked upon his