Knowing the promise Phineas Colwell had made, and feeling
desirous of having everything which concerned my well settled and
finished, I went to look for him to remind him of his duty toward
Mrs. Perch, but I could not find that naval and military
mechanical agriculturist. He had gone away to take a job or a
contract,--I could not discover which,--and he has not since
appeared in our neighborhood. Mrs. Perch is very severe on me
about this.
"There's plenty of bad things come out of that well," she
said, "but I never thought anything bad enough would come out of
it to make Mr. Colwell go away and leave me to keep on being a
widow with all them orphans."
MR.TOLMAN
Mr. Tolman was a gentleman whose apparent age was of a varying
character. At times, when deep in thought on business matters or
other affairs, one might have thought him fifty-five or fifty-
seven, or even sixty. Ordinarily, however, when things were
running along in a satisfactory and commonplace way, he appeared
to be about fifty years old, while upon some extraordinary
occasions, when the world assumed an unusually attractive aspect,
his age seemed to run down to forty-five or less.
He was the head of a business firm. In fact, he was the only
member of it. The firm was known as Pusey and Co. But Pusey had
long been dead and the "Co.," of which Mr. Tolman had been a
member, was dissolved. Our elderly hero, having bought out the
business, firm-name and all, for many years had carried it on
with success and profit.
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