He began to tell me of a "small venture" he had begun in New Mexico through his son; "only a little thing--a mere trifle--partly to amuse my leisure, partly to keep my capital from lying idle, but mainly to develop the boy--develop the boy; fortune's wheel is ever revolving, he may have to work for his living some day--as strange things have happened in this world.

But it's only a little thing--a mere trifle, as I said." And so it was--as he began it.

But under his deft hands it grew, and blossomed, and spread--oh, beyond imagination.

At the end of half an hour he finished; finished with the remark, uttered in an adorably languid manner: "Yes, it is but a trifle, as things go nowadays--a bagatelle--but amusing.

It passes the time.