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He got Henry Bittinger to put up the money, with Tommy and his mother in charge. O-liver lived in the hotel in a suite of small rooms, and when Atwood Jones passed that way the four men dined together as O-liver's guests. "Some day we'll eat with you in Washington," was Atwood's continued prophecy. They always drank "To Jane." Now and then Atwood brought news of her.
Tinkersfield had assumed a sudden importance as an oil town. All of the men had business connected in some way with Tinkersfield. And all of them earned more than fifteen dollars a week. Therefore they disputed O-liver's statement. "If you had a wife " said one. "Ah," said O-liver, "if I had " "Ain't you got any ambition?" Henry Bittinger demanded.
Tommy, softening O-liver's words a bit, gave them in the form of advice to Jane: "He thinks you'd better live on leeks and lettuce than go down-town like that." Jane gasped. "Leeks and lettuce? Me? He doesn't know what he's talking about! And anyhow, what can you expect of a man like that?"
"She's going to make a hundred sandwiches next week," Tommy vouchsafed. O-liver's mind could scarcely compass one hundred sandwiches. "She'd better stick to her leeks and lettuce." He rode away the next Saturday night. It was his protest against the interest roused in the community by this Jane who sold sandwiches. He heard of her everywhere. Some of the men were respectful and some were not.
There were those in the crowd who began to feel that a weak spot had been found in O-liver's armor. Secrecy! They didn't like it. There were signs of wavering among some who had squared their shoulders. After all, they didn't want to make a Sunday school of Tinkersfield.
His father lived in a great Tudor house which gave the effect of age but was not old. It had a minstrels' gallery, a big hall and a little hall, mullioned windows and all the rest of it. It had been built because of a whim of his wife's. But O-liver's father in the ten years he had lived in it had learned to love it.
As toward morning the moonlight streamed in and she still lay awake she permitted herself to let her mind dwell for a moment on what her future might mean if he were in it. She was too busy and healthy to indulge in useless regrets. But she knew in that moment in the moonlight if he was not to be in her future no other man would ever be. O-liver's speech was made in the open.
So the next day he took it on himself feeling a traitor to his friend. "Jane," he said, sitting on a high stool in her little sandwich shop "Jane, O-liver's married." Jane on the other side of the spotless counter gave him her earnest glance. "Yes," she said; "he told me." "He did? Well, I'm glad. It wasn't a thing to keep, was it?" "No," said Jane; "it wasn't.
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