There's no end of rot talked
about improving towns by putting up factories, but I can't see it
myself."
Snaffle sometimes said that he believed in nothing but making money,
and there was never any reason to suppose he held an opinion because he
expressed it. He said what he felt to be politic, and a long and
complicated experience enabled him to defend any view with more or less
plausibility upon a moment's notice. He was clever enough to see that
for some reason the widow wished him to pursue the line of talk he had
taken, and he was ready enough to oblige her. He never took the trouble
to inquire of himself what his opinions were, because that question was
of so secondary importance; he merely exerted himself to make the most
of any points that presented themselves to his mind in favor of the
side it was for his advantage to support.
"'Pon my word," Greenfield said, with a laugh, "you talk like an old
fogy of the first water. I wouldn't have suspected you of looking at
things that way."
"Mr. Snaffle is always surprising," Mrs. Sampson said, with her most
dazzling smile, "but he is generally right."
"Thank you. I can't help at any rate seeing that there are two sides to
this thing, and I am too old a bird to be caught with the common chaff
that people talk."
Mr. Greenfield settled himself comfortably in his chair and laughed
softly.
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