I thought I could cut a long story short, but I seem to be cutting a short story long.

If you're not in a hurry, though--" "Not in the least.

Go on as long as you like." "I met him there in the office of a real-estate man--speculator, of course; everybody was, in Moffitt; but a first-rate fellow, and public-spirited as all get-out; and when Dryfoos left he told me about him.

Dryfoos was an old Pennsylvania Dutch farmer, about three or four miles out of Moffitt, and he'd lived there pretty much all his life; father was one of the first settlers.

Everybody knew he had the right stuff in him, but he was slower than molasses in January, like those Pennsylvania Dutch.