He expected so little from it that he hadn't even got the agreement done in writin', and hadn't paid for it, when the Divide Railroad passed the legislature, as it never oughter done! For, you see, the blamedest cur'ous thing about the whole affair was that this 'straw' road of a Divide, all pure wildcat, was only gotten up to frighten the Pacific Railroad sharps into buying it up.

And the road that nobody ever calculated would ever have a rail of it laid was pushed on as soon as folks knew that the Ditch plant had been bought up, for they thought there was a big thing behind it.
Even the hotel was, at first, simply a kind of genteel alms-house that this yer Barker had built for broken-down miners!" "Nevertheless," continued Demorest, smiling, "you admit that it is a great success ?" "Yes," said the other, a little irritated by some complacency in Demorest's smile, "but the success isn't HIS'N.

Fools has ideas, and wise men profit by them, for that hotel now has Jim Stacy's bank behind it, and is even a kind of country branch of the Brook House in 'Frisco.
Barker's out of it, I reckon.

Anyhow, HE couldn't run a hotel, for all that his wife--she that's one of the big 'Frisco swells now--used to help serve in her father's.

No, sir, it's just a fool's luck, gettin' the first taste and leavin' the rest to others." "I'm not sure that it's the worst kind of luck," returned Demorest, with persistent gravity; "and I suppose he's satisfied with it." But so heterodox an opinion only irritated his antagonist the more, especially as he noticed that the handsome woman in the back seat appeared to be interested in the conversation, and even sympathetic with Demorest.