III-XV

Gordon placed on the table before him the
statements and accounts of his newly-augmented
options. The papers, to his clerical
inefficiency, presented a bewildering mass of
inexplicable details and accounts. He brought
them, with vast difficulty, into a rough order. In the
lists of the acreages of timber controlled there were
appended none of the names of those from whom
his privilege of option had been obtained, no note
of the slightly-varying sums paid -- the sole, paramount
facts to Gordon now. For the establishment
of these he was obliged to refer to the original, individual
contracts, to compare and add and check off.

Old Pompey had conducted his transactions
largely from his buggy, lending them a speciously
casual aspect. The options made to him were written
on slips of paper hastily torn from a cheap note
book, engrossed on yellowing sheets of foolscap in
tremulous Spencerian. Their wording was informal,
often strictly local. One granted privilege
of purchase of, "The piney trees on Pap's and mine
but not Henny's for nineteen years." Another bore,
above the date, "In this year of Jesus Christ's holy
redemption."

[[331]]

p330 _ -chap- _ toc-1 _ p331w _ toc-2 _ +chap+ _ p332

v?