"No," said Welton, emphasizing his point with his pipe; _"it's not
sticking to business!_ It's not stripping her down to the bare
necessities! It's going in for frills! When you get to be as old as I
am, you learn not to monkey with the band wagon."
His round, red face relaxed into one of his good-humoured grins, and he
relit his pipe.
"That's the trouble with this forestry monkey business. It's all right
to fool with, if you want fooling. So's fancy farming. But it don't pay.
If you are playing, why, it's all right to experiment. If you ain't,
why, it's a good plan to stick to the methods of lumbering. The present
system of doing things has been worked out pretty thorough by a lot of
pretty shrewd business men. And it _works!"_
Bob laughed.
"Didn't know you could orate to that extent," he gibed. "Sic'em!"
Welton grinned a trifle abashed. "You don't want to get me started,
then," said he.
"Oh, but I do!" Bob objected, for the second time that day.
"Now this slashing business," went on the old lumberman in a more
moderate tone. "When the millennium comes, it would be a fine thing to
clear up the old slashings.
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