"Go down to the seashore," said I, "where the people congregate who have nothing to do."
"Not I," said she; "I'll go into real estate, and become as blind as the rest!"
Jim paid no attention to my chaffing when I spoke of his conquest, as I called Antonia. In fact, he seemed annoyed, and for a long time said nothing.
"You can see how the Allen estate proposition stands," said he, at last. "To let that sell for less than twenty thousand might cost us ten times that amount in lowering the prevailing standard of values. The old rule that we should buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest is suspended. Base is the slave who pays--less than the necessary and proper increase."
The Hindu adept sometimes suspends before the eyes of his subject a bright ball of carnelian or crystal, in the steady contemplation of which the sensitive swims off into the realms of subjectivity--that mysterious bourn from whence no traveler brings anything back. J. Bedford Cornish was Mr. Elkins's glittering ball; his psychic subject was the world in general and Lattimore in particular. Scientific principles, confirmed by experience, led us to the conclusion that the attitude of fixed contemplation carried with it some nervous strain, ought to be of limited duration, and hence that Mr. Cornish should remove from our midst the glittering mystery of his presence, lest familiarity should breed contempt. So in about ten days he went away, giving to the _Herald_ a parting interview, in which he expressed unbounded delight with Lattimore, and hinted that he might return for a longer stay. Editorially, the _Herald_ expressed the hope that this characteristically veiled allusion to a longer sojourn might mean that Mr. Cornish had some idea of becoming a citizen of Lattimore. This would denote, the editorial continued, that men like Mr. Cornish, accustomed to the mighty world-pulse of New York, could find objects of pursuit equally worthy in Lattimore.
"Which is mixed metaphor," Mr. Giddings admitted in confidence; "but," he continued, "if metaphors, like drinks, happen to be more potent mixed, the _Herald_ proposes to mix 'em."
All these things consumed time, and still our life was one devoted to business exclusively. At last Mr. Elkins himself, urged, I feel sure, by Antonia Hinckley, gave evidence of weariness.