“Why, of course, Mr. Shelby,” he assented;—“that’s just the way I want you to feel; I don’t want you to use any tact on me. I don’t need it. When I’m layin’ out a proposition like this before a real business man, all I want is his attention to the facts.”
“The facts of the future,” the enthusiast replied instantly. “The future——”
“What d’you mean talkin’ about the facts of the future? There ain’t any facts in the future. How you goin’ to have any facts that haven’t happened yet? A fact is something that’s either happened or _is_ happening right now.”
“No, sir!” Dan exclaimed. “The present is only a fraction of a second, if it’s even that much; the past isn’t any time at all—it’s gone; everything that amounts to anything is in the future. The future is all that’s worth anybody’s thinkin’ about. That’s why I want you to think about the future of your car lines, Mr. Shelby.”
“Oh, you do, do you?” the old gentleman said sardonically. “You think I _ain’t_ thinkin’ about it, so you called around for the fourth time to draw my attention to it?”
“Yes, sir,” the undaunted young man replied. “I don’t mean exactly you don’t think about it; I just mean you don’t seem to me to consider all the possibilities.”
“Such as old Ranse Ornaby’s ex-hog-wallow and corn-patch, for instance?”
“That ex-hog-wallow and corn-patch, Mr. Shelby,” Dan said proudly, “consists of five hundred and thirty-one and two-thirds acres. If you’d only drive out there in your carriage as I’ve asked you to——”
“Good heavens!” Mr. Shelby interrupted. “I chopped wood there thirty years before you were born! D’you think I got to hitch up and go buggy-ridin’ to know where Ranse Ornaby’s farm is?”
“It isn’t his, sir,” Dan reminded him. “It belongs to me. I only meant, if you’d come out there I think you’d see some changes since I’ve been layin’ it out in city lots.”
“City lots? What city you talkin’ about? Where’s any city in that part o’ the county? _I_ never knew there was any city up that way.”
“The city of the future!” Dan proclaimed, his eyes brightening as he heard his own phrase. “_This_ city when it begins to reach its growth! Why, in ten years from now——”
“Ten years from now!” the old man echoed, with angry mockery. “What in Constantinople you talkin’ about? D’you know you’re gettin’ to be a regular by-word in this town? Old George Rowe told me yesterday at his bank, he says you got a nickname like some Indian. It’s ‘Young Ten-Years-From-Now.’ That’s what they call you: ‘Young Ten-Years-From-Now’! George Rowe asked me: he says, ‘Has Young Ten-Years-From-Now been around your way makin’ any more speeches?’ he says. He says that’s the nickname everybody’s got for you. It’s all over town, he says.”