He had come to the city to show Tim the sights, and, therefore, though like a man in a dream, he drove conscientiously about the gay streets, pointing out whatever he thought might interest the boy, and generally discovering that Tim had the new information by heart already.  All the while a question pounded itself, like the beat of the heart of an engine, through the noise and the talk:  “Shall I give up Richards or be turned out myself?”

When the afternoon sunlight waned he put up the horse at a modest little stable where farmers were allowed to bring their own provender.  The charges were of the smallest and the place neat and weather-tight, but it had been a long time before Nelson could be induced to use it, because there was a higher-priced stable kept by an ex-farmer and member of the Farmers’ Alliance.  Only the fact that the keeper of the low-priced stable was a poor orphan girl, struggling to earn an honest livelihood, had moved him.

They had supper at a restaurant of Tim’s discovery, small, specklessly tidy, and as unexacting of the pocket as the stable.  It was an excellent supper.  But Nelson had no appetite; in spite of an almost childish capacity for being diverted, he could attend to nothing but the question always in his ears:  “Richards or me—­which?”

Until it should be time for the spectacle they walked down the hill, and watched the crowds gradually blacken every inch of the river-banks.  Already the swarms of lanterns were beginning to bloom out in the dusk.  Strains of music throbbed through the air, adding a poignant touch to the excitement vibrating in all the faces and voices about them.  Even the stolid Tim felt the contagion.  He walked with a jaunty step and assaulted a tune himself.  “I tell you, Uncle,” says Tim, “it’s nice of these folks to be getting up all this show, and giving it for nothing!”

“Do you think so?” says Nelson.  “You don’t love your book as I wish you did; but I guess you remember about the ancient Romans, and how the great, rich Romans used to spend enormous sums in games and shows that they let the people in free to—­well, what for?  Was it to learn them anything or to make them happy?  Oh, no, it was to keep down the spirit of liberty, Son, it was to make them content to be slaves!  And so it is here.  These merchants and capitalists are only looking out for themselves, trying to keep labor down and not let it know how oppressed it is, trying to get people here from everywhere to show what a fine city they have and get their money.”

“Well, ’tis a fine town,” Tim burst in, “a boss town!  And they ain’t gouging folks a little bit.  None of the hotels or the restaurants have put up their prices one cent.  Look what a dandy supper we got for twenty-five cents!  And ain’t the boy at Lumley’s grocery given me two tickets to set on the steamboat?  There’s nothing mean about this town!”

Nelson made no remark; but he thought, for the fiftieth time, that his farm was too near the city.  Tim was picking up all the city boys’ false pride as well as their slang.  Unconscious Tim resumed his tune.  He knew that it was “Annie Rooney” if no one else did, and he mangled the notes with appropriate exhilaration.