"It cost me two dollars to get my watch fixed," said Robert,
irrelevantly.

"I was on time in that affair," said Quincy, conscious, when too
late, that he had wasted a pun on an obtuse individual. "Are you
still carpentering?"

"Yes. Lots of new houses going up, and Ben Bates and me have all we
can handle. Here, Ben, come here. The Governor's askin' 'bout you."

Benjamin Bates was rather diffident, and had been holding back, but
at Bob's invitation came forward.

"How d'ye do, Governor?" was his salutation. Diffidence when forced
to action often verges on forwardness.

"Glad to meet you again," said Quincy. "Robert says they keep you
busy."

"Yes, we don't have so many resting spells now they use donkey
engines as we did when Pat or Mike had to climb the ladder."

"The march of improvement forces us all into line," said Quincy as he
greeted Miss Seraphina Cotton.

"Teaching school, now, Miss Cotton?"

"No, your Excellency, I am fortunately relieved from what became,
near the end of my long years of service, an intolerable drudgery.