"The young gentleman is an exception," he returned. "I told you I owed
everything to him; my gratitude will not allow me to admit that his
ability is less than his stature. He suggested my purchase of a quantity
of Mr. Watts's oil stock when it was knocked flat on its back by two wells
turning out dry; but if Mr. Watts's third well comes in, and young Fisbee
has convinced me that it will, and if my Midas's extra booms the stock and
the boom develops, I shall oppose the income tax. Poor old Plattville will
be full of strangers and speculators, and the 'Herald' will advocate vast
improvements to impress the investor's eye. Stagnation and picturesqueness
will flee together; it is the history of the Indiana town. Already the
'Herald' is clamoring with Schofields' Henry--you remember the bell-
ringer?--for Main Street to be asphalted. It will all come. The only
trouble with young Fisbee is that he has too much ability."
"And yet the daily will not succeed?"
"No. That's too big a jump, unless my young man's expressions on the
tariff command a wide sale amongst curio-hunters."
"Then he is quite a fool about political matters?"
"Far from it; he is highly ingenious. His editorials are often the
subtlest cups of flattery I ever sipped, many of them showing assiduous
study of old files to master the method and notions of his eagle-eyed
predecessor. But the tariff seems to have got him. He is a very masculine
person, except for this one feminine quality, for, if I may say it without
ungallantry, there is a legend that no woman has ever understood the
tariff. Young Fisbee must be an extremely travelled person, because the
custom-house people have made an impression upon him which no few
encounters with them could explain, and he conceives the tariff to be a
law which discommodes a lady who has been purchasing gloves in Paris. He
thinks smuggling the great evil of the present tariff system; it is such a
temptation, so insidious a break-down of moral fibre. His views must edify
Carlow."
She gave a quick, stifled cry. "Oh! there isn't a word of truth in what
you say! Not a word! I did not think you could be so cruel!"
He bent forward, peering at her in astonishment.
"Cruel!"
"You know it is a hateful distortion--an exaggeration!" she exclaimed
passionately. "No man living could have so little sense as you say he has.
The tariff is perfectly plain to any child. When you were in Plattville
you weren't like this--I didn't know you were unkind!"