around Petersburg.  After the war he was a leader against the carpet-baggers, and if this State is peaceful and prosperous and comfortable for you to live in now, it is because of what men like him and my father did a generation ago.  When he took the Post he went on just the same, working and thinking and fighting for men and with men, and all in the service of the people.  I suppose, of course, his views through all these years have not always been sound, but they have always been honest and honorable, sensible, manly, and sweet.  And they have always had a practical relation with the life of the people.  The result is that he has thousands and thousands of readers who feel that their day has been wanting in something unless they have read what he has to say.  There is Colonel Cowles—­Does this interest you, Mr. Queed?  If not, I need not weary us both by continuing.”

He again requested her, in the briefest possible way, to proceed.

“Well!  There is Colonel Cowles, whom you presume to despise, because you know, or think you know, more political and social science than he does.  Where you got your preposterously exaggerated idea of the value of text-book science I am at a loss to understand.  The people you aspire to lead—­for that is what an editorial writer must do—­care nothing for it.  That tired bricklayer whom you dismiss with such contempt of course cares nothing for it.  But that bricklayer is the People, Mr. Queed.  He is the very man that Colonel Cowles goes to, and puts his hand on his shoulder, and tries to help—­help him to a better home, better education for his children, more and more wholesome pleasures, a higher and happier living.  Colonel Cowles thinks of life as an opportunity to live with and serve the common, average, everyday people.  You think of it as an opportunity to live by yourself and serve your own ambition.  He writes to the hearts of the people.  You write to the heads of scientists.  Doubtless it will amaze you to be told that his paragraph on the death of Moses Page, the Byrds’ old negro butler, was a far more useful article in every way than your long critique on the currency system of Germany which appeared in the same issue.  Colonel Cowles is a big-hearted human being.  You—­you are a scientific formula.  And the worst of it is that you’re proud of it! The hopeless part of it is that you actually consider a few old fossils as bigger than the live people all around you!  How can I show you your terrible mistake?...  Why, Mr. Queed, the life and example of a little girl ...” she stopped, rather precipitately, stared hard at her hands, which were folded in her lap, and went resolutely on:  “The life and example of a little girl like Fifi are worth more than all the text-books you will ever write.”

A silence fell.  In the soft lamplight of the pretty room, Queed sat still and silent as a marble man; and presently Sharlee, plucking herself together, resumed:—­