Further, I suspected that J.R.C.  Tuckerman, with all his genius for hard work, lacked the administrative gifts of a true financier.  He said a hundred thousand pullets when he should have said twenty-five, and he seemed to consider his banked hoard of gold money to be inexhaustible when it was in fact merely a sum slightly greater than he was wont to juggle with in his darkened mind.

I was not surprised, therefore, when I found him rather dejectedly sunk in figures one afternoon about a week after Miss Caroline’s “home-fixin’s” had begun to arrive.

These were all about him at the front door, in the hall, and extending far into the rooms, a truly depressing chaos of packing boxes, swathed tables, chairs, bureaus, and barrels of china.  Nor was this all; for even as I loitered up to the door the dray of Sam Murdock halted in front with another huge load.

Clem raised his head from a sheet of sprawled figures and regarded this fresh trouble with something like consternation.  In one hand he fluttered a packet of receipted freight bills, and he spoke as one in an evil dream.

“Yes, seh, Mahstah Majah, it suttinly do seem lahk them railroad genamen would git monst’ous rich a-runnin’ them freight trains about th’ kentry th’ way lahk they do.  Ah allus think them ole freight cyahs look maghty cheap an’ common a-rattlin’ around, but Ah teks mah ole hat off to um yehafteh.  Yes, seh, Ah lays Ah will!  Them engineahs an’ fiahmen an’ them Cunnels with gole on they hats, Ah gaiss they go’n’ a’ have all th’ money in th’ world maghty shawtly.  They looks highly awdinahy an’ unpetentious, but they suttinly p’duces th’ revenue.  Ah sho’ly go’n’ a’ repoht mahse’f to um ve’y honably when they pass me by yehafteh.  Yo’ don’t gaiss they made a errah, Mahstah Majah?”

He searched my face with a sudden hope:—­

“Yo’ don’t reckon they git a idy them funichas an’ home-fixin’s ain’t been paid foh in th’ fust place?”

I took the packet from his hands and glanced over it.

“No, these seem to be all right, Clem—­only freight is charged for.  But you must remember Virginia is a long way off.”

“Yes, seh—­it ain’t neveh raghtly come upon me befoh.”

“And freights are high, of course?”

“Yes, seh, th’ freight p’fession does look lahk it ort a’ be maghty gainful.  Ah gaiss them engineahs go’n’ a’ do raght well in it, with evabody movin’ ’round considable.”

“Well, how many more loads do you expect?”

“Well, seh, Ah don’t raghtly know.  Ah tell that drivah yestaday Ah already got a gret abundance to mek evabody comf’table, an’ a little bit oveh, but he jes’ sais, ‘Oh, tha’s all raght,’ an’ so fothe, an’ he still is a-bringin’ it.  Lohks ve’y strongly lahk he ain’t go’n’ a’ stop at mah implications.  Mahstah Majah, maght happen lahk he’d ack mo’ reasonin’ ef yo’ was t’ have a good long talk with him.”

“Oh, he hasn’t anything to do with it.  He only brings what your Miss Caroline has shipped.  She shouldn’t have sent so much, that’s all.”