The Colossus: A Novel

A MOTHER'S AFFECTION.

In one bedazzled moment we review a whole night of darkness. A luxury brings with it the memory of a privation. The first glimpse of those drawing-rooms, gleaming with white and warm with gold, were seen against a black cloud, and that cloud was the past. The wanderer was startled; there was nothing now to turn aside the full shock of his responsibilities. He felt the enormity of his pretense, and he began again to pick at his motive. Mrs. Witherspoon perceived a change in him and anxiously asked if he were ill. No, but now that his long journey was ended he felt worn by it. The father saw him with a fresh criticism and said that he looked older than his years bespoke him; but the mother, quick in every defense, insisted that he had gone through enough to make any one look old; and besides, the Craigs, being a thoughtful people, always looked older than they really were. In the years that followed, this first day "at home" was reviewed in all its memories—the library with its busts of old thinkers and its bright array of new books; the sober breakfast-room in which luncheon was served; the orderly servants; the plants; the gold fishes; the heavy hangings; a tiger skin with a life-expressive head; the portraits of American statesmen; the rich painting of a cow that flashed back the tradition of a trade-mark bull on a dead wall.

Evening came with melody in the music-room; midnight, and Henry sat alone in his room. He was heavy with sadness. The feeling that henceforth his success must depend upon the skill of his hypocrisy, and that he must at last die a liar, lay upon him with cold oppression. Kindness was a reproach and love was a censure. Some one tapped at the door.

"Come in."

Mrs. Witherspoon entered. "I just wanted to see if you were comfortable," she said, seating herself in a rocking-chair.

"So much so that I am tempted to rebel against it," he answered.

She smiled sadly. "There are so many things that I wanted to say to you, dear, but I haven't had a chance, somehow."

Her eyes were tear-stricken and her voice trembled. "It isn't possible that you could know what a mother's love is, my son."

"I didn't know, but you have taught me."

"No, not yet; but I will—if you'll let me."

"If I'll let you?" He looked at her in surprise.

"Yes, if you will bear with me. Sit here," she said, tapping the broad arm of the chair. He obeyed, and she took his arms and put them about her neck. "There hasn't been much love in my life, precious. Perhaps I am not showy enough, not strong enough for the place I occupy."

"But you are good enough to hold the place of an angel."

She attempted to speak, but failed. Something fell on her hand, and she looked up. The man was weeping. They sat there in silence.

"In your early life," she said, pressing his arms closer about her neck, "my love sought to protect you, but now it must turn to you for support. Your uncle—but you told me not to speak of him." She paused a moment, and then continued: "Your uncle did me a deep wrong, but I had wronged him. Oh, I don't know why I did. And he had kept my letters all these years." Another silence. She was the first to speak. "Ellen loves me, but a daughter's love is more of a help than a support."

"And father?"

"Oh, he is good and kind," she quickly answered, "but somehow I haven't kept up with him. He is so strong, and I fear that my nature is too simple; I haven't force enough to help him when he's worried. He hasn't said so, but I know it! And of course you don't understand me yet; but won't you bear with me?"

In her voice there was a sad pleading for love, and this man, though playing a part, dropped the promptings of his role, and with the memory of his own mother strong within him, pressed this frail woman to his bosom and with tender reverence kissed her.

"Oh," she sobbed, "I thank God for bringing you back to me. Good night."

He closed the door when she was gone, and stood as though he knew not whither to turn. He looked at the onyx clock ticking on the mantelpiece. He listened to the rumble of a carriage in the street. He put out his hands, and going slowly into his sleeping-room, sank upon his knees at the bedside.

THE DOMAIN OF A GREAT MERCHANT.

To one who has gazed for many hours upon whirling scenes, and who at his journey's end has gone to sleep in an unfamiliar place, the question of self-identity presents itself at morning and of the dozing faculties demands an answer. Henry lay in bed, catching at flitting consciousness, but missing it. He tried to recall his own name, but could not. One moment he felt that he was on board a ship, rising and sinking with the mood of the sea; then he was on a railway train, catching sight of a fence that streaked its way across a field. He saw a boy struggling with a horse that was frightened at the train; he saw a girl wave her beflowered hat—a rushing woods, a whirling open space, a sleepy station. Once he fancied that he was a child lying in bed, not at midnight, but at happy, bird-chattered morning, when the sun was bright; but then he heard a roar and he saw a street stretch out into a darkening distance, and he knew that he was in a great city. Consciousness loitered within reach, and he seized it. He was called to breakfast.

How bright the morning. Through the high and church-like windows softened sunbeams fell upon the stairway. He heard Ellen singing in the music-room; he met the rich fragrance of coffee. Mrs. Witherspoon, with a smile of quiet happiness, stood at the foot of the stairs. Ellen came out with a lithe skip and threw a kiss at him. Witherspoon sat in the breakfast-room reading a morning newspaper.

"Well, my son, how do you find yourself this morning?" the merchant asked, throwing aside the newspaper and stretching himself back in his chair.

"First-rate; but I had quite a time placing myself before I was fully awake."

"I guess that's true of nearly everybody who comes to Chicago. It makes no difference how wide-awake a man thinks he is, he will find when he comes to this city that he has been nodding."

Breakfast was announced. Ellen took Henry's hand and said: "Come, this is your place here by me. Mother told me to sit near you; she wants me to check any threatened outbreak of your foreign peculiarities."

"Ellen, what do you mean? I didn't say anything of the sort, Henry. It could make no difference where my mother's people were brought up. The Craigs always knew how to conduct themselves."

"Oh, yes," Witherspoon spoke up, "the Craigs were undoubtedly all right, but we are dealing with live issues now. Henry, we'll go down to the store this morning"—

"So soon?" his wife interrupted.

"So soon?" the merchant repeated. "What do you mean by so soon? Won't it be time to go?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose so."

"And where do I come in?" asked the girl.

"You can go if you insist," said Witherspoon, "but there are matters that he and I must arrange at once. We've got to fix up some sort of statement for the newspapers; can't keep this thing a secret, you know, and a tailor must be consulted. Your clothes are all right, my son," he quickly added, "but—well, you understand."

Henry understood, but he had thought when he left New Orleans that he was well dressed. And now for a moment he felt ragged.

"When shall we have the reception?" Ellen asked.

"The reception," Henry repeated, looking up in alarm.

"Why, listen to him," the girl cried. "Don't you know that we must give a reception? Why, we couldn't get along without it; society would cut us dead. Think how nice it will be—invitations with 'To meet Mr. Henry Witherspoon' on them."

"Must I go through that?" Henry asked, appealing to Mrs. Witherspoon.

"Of course you must, but not until the proper time."

"Why, it will be just splendid," the girl declared. "You ought to have seen me the night society smiled and said, 'Well, we will now permit you to be one of us.' Oh, the idea of not showing you off, now that we've caught you, is ridiculous. You needn't appeal to mother. You couldn't keep her from parading you up and down in the presence of her friends."

He was looking at Mrs. Witherspoon. She smiled with more of humor than he had seen her face express, and thus delivered her opinion: "If we had no reception, people would think that we were ashamed of our son."

"All right, mother; if you want your friends to meet the wild man of Borneo who has just come to town, I have nothing more to say. Your word shall be a law with me; but I must tell you that whenever you make arrangements into which I enter, you must remember that society and I have had scarcely a hat-tipping acquaintance. I may know many things that society never even dreamed of, but some of society's simplest phases are dangerous mysteries to me."

"Nonsense," said Witherspoon. "Society may rule a poor man, but a rich man rules society. Common sense always commands respect, for nearly every rule that governs the conduct of man is founded upon it. Don't you worry about the reception or anything else. You are a man of the world, and to such a man society is a mere plaything."

"Well," replied Ellen, wrinkling her handsome brow with a frown, "I must say that you preach an odd sort of sermon. Society is supposed to hold the culture and the breeding of a community, sir."

"Yes, supposed to," Witherspoon agreed.

"Oh, well, if you question it I won't argue with you." And giving Henry a meaning look, she continued: "Of course business is first. Art drops on its worn knees and prays to business, and literature begs it for a mere nod. Everything is the servant of business."

"Everything in Chicago is," the merchant replied.

"Art is the old age of trade," said Henry. "A vigorous nation buys and sells and fights; but a nation that is threatened with decay paints and begs."

"Good!" Witherspoon exclaimed. "I think you've hit it squarely. Since we went to Europe, Ellen has had an idea that trade is rather low in the scale of human interest."

"Now, father, I haven't any such idea, and you know it, too. But I do think that people who spend their lives in getting money can't be as refined as those who have a higher aim."

Witherspoon grunted. "What do you call a higher aim? Hanging about a picture gallery and simpering over a lot of long-haired fellows in outlandish dress, ha? Is it refinement to worship a picture simply because you are not able to buy it? Some people rave over art, and we buy it and hang it up at home."

She laughed, and slipping off her chair, ran round to her father and put her arms about his neck. "I can always stir you up, can't I?"

"You can when you talk that way," he answered.

"But you know I don't mean that you aren't refined. Who could be more gentle than you are? But you must let me enjoy an occasional mischief. My mother's people, the Craigs, were all full of mischief, and"

"Ellen," said her mother.

Witherspoon laughed, and reaching back, pretended to pull the girl's ears. "Am I going down town with you?" she asked.

"No, not this morning. I'm going to drive Henry down in the light buggy. My boy, I've got as fine a span of bay horses as you ever saw. Cost me five thousand apiece. That's art for you; eh, Ellen?"

"They are beautiful," she admitted.

"Yes, and strung up with pride. Get ready, Henry, and we'll go."

When Witherspoon gathered up the lines and with the whip touched one of the horses, both jumped as though startled by the same impulse.

"There's grace for you," said Witherspoon. "Look how they plant their fore feet."

Henry did not answer. He was looking back at a palace, his home; and he, too, was touched with a whip—the thrilling whip of pride. It lasted but a moment. His memory threw up a home for the friendless, and upon a background of hunger, squalor and wretchedness his fancy flashed the picture of an Italian hag, crooning and toothless.

"We'll turn into Michigan here," said the merchant. "Isn't this a great thoroughfare? Yonder is where we lived before we built our new house. Just think what this will be when these elms are old." They sped along the smooth drive. "Ho, boys! Business is creeping out this way, and that is the reason I got over on Prairie. See, that man has turned his residence into a sort of store. A little farther along you will see fashionable humbuggery of all sorts. These are women fakes along here. Ho, boys, ho! There's where old man Colton lives. We'll meet him at the store. In the Colossus Company he is next to me. Smart old fellow, but he worked many years in the hammer-and-tongs way, and he probably never would have done much if he hadn't been shoved. Ho, boys, ho! People ought to be arrested for piling brick in the street this way. Colton was always afraid of venturing; shuddered at the thought of risking his money; wanted it where he could lay his hands on it at any time. Brooks, his son-in-law, is a sort of general manager over our entire establishment, and he is one of the most active and useful men I ever saw—bright, quick, characteristically American. I think you'll like him. That place over there"—cutting his whip toward an old frame house scalloped and corniced in fantastic flimsiness—"was sold the other day at about thirty per cent more than it would have brought a few years ago."

They turned into another street and were taken up, it seemed, by the swift trade currents that swirl at morning, rush through the noon, glide past the evening and rest for a time in the semi-calm of midnight. Chicago has begun to set the pace of a nervous nation's progress. It is a city whose growth has proved a fatal example to many an overweaning town. Materialistic, it holds no theory that points not to great results; adventurous, it has small patience with methods that slowness alone has stamped as legitimate. Worshiping a deification of real estate, and with a rude aristocracy building upon the blood of the sow and the tallow of the bull, its atmosphere discourages one artist while inviting another to rake up the showered rewards of a "boom" patronage. Feeling that naught but sleepiness and sloth should be censured, it resents even a kindly criticism. Quick to recognize the feasibility of a scheme; giving money, but holding time as a sacred inheritance. It is a re-gathering of the forces that peopled America and then made her great among nations; a mighty community with a growing literary force and with its culture and its real love for the beautiful largely confined to the poor in purse; grand in a thousand respects; with its history glaring upon the black sky of night; with the finest boulevards in America and the filthiest alleys—a giant in need of a bath.

The Colossus stood as a towering island with "a tide in the affairs of men" sweeping past. And it seemed to Henry that the buggy was cast ashore as a piece of driftwood that touches land and finds a lodgment. At an earlier day, and not so long ago either, the flaw of unconscious irony might have been picked in the name Colossus, but now the establishment, covering almost a block and rising story upon story, filled in the outlines of its pretentious christening.

"Tap, tap, tap—cash, 46; tap, tap—cash, 63," was the leading strain in this din of extensive barter and petty transaction. The Colossus boasted that it could meet every commercial demand; supply a sewing-machine needle or set up a saw-mill; receipt for gas bills and water rates or fit out a general store. Under one roof it held the resources of a city. Henry was startled by its immensity, and as he followed Witherspoon through labyrinths of bright gauzes and avenues of somber goods, he perceived that a change in the tone of the hum announced the approach of the master. And it appeared that, no matter what a girl might be doing, she began hurriedly to do something else the moment she spied Witherspoon coming toward her. The quick signs of flirtation, signals along the downward track of morality, subsided whenever this ruler came within sight; and the smirk bargain-counter miss would actually turn from the grinning idiocy of the bullet-headed fellow who had come in to admire her and would deign to wait on a poorly dressed woman who had failed to attract her attention.

The offices of the management were on the first floor, and Henry was conducted thither and shown into Witherspoon's private apartment—into the calico, bombazine, hardware and universal nick-nack holy of holies. The room was not fitted up for show, but for business. Its furniture consisted mainly of a roll-top desk, a stamp with its handle sticking up like the tail of an excited cat, a dingy carpet and several chairs of a shape so ungenial to the human form as to suggest that a hint at me desirability of a visitor's early withdrawal might have been incorporated in their construction.

"I will see if Colton has come down," Witherspoon remarked, glancing through a door into another room. "Yes, there he is. He's coming. Mr. Colton," said Witherspoon, with deep impressiveness, "this is my son Henry."

The old man bowed with a politeness in which there was a reminder of a slower and therefore a more courteous day, and taking the hand which Henry cordially offered him, said: "To meet you affects me profoundly, sir. Of course I am acquainted with your early history, and this adds to the interest I feel in you; but aside from this, to meet a son of George Witherspoon must necessarily give me great pleasure."

"Brother Colton is from Maryland," Witherspoon remarked, and a sudden shriveling about the old man's mouth told that he was smiling at what he had long since learned to believe was a capital hit of playfulness. And he bowed, grabbled up a dingy handkerchief that dangled from him somewhere, wiped off his shriveled smile, and then declared that if frankness was a mark of the Marylander, he should always be glad to acknowledge his native State.

Brooks, Colton's son-in-law, now came in. This man, while a floor-walker in a dry-goods store, had attracted Witherspoon's notice, and a position in the Colossus, at that time an experiment, was given him. He recognized the demands of his calling, and he strove to fit himself to them. Several years later he married Miss Colton, and now he was in a position of such confidence that many schemes for the broadening of trade and for the pleasing of the public's changeful fancy were entrusted to his management. He was of a size which appears to set off clothes to the best advantage. His face was pale and thoughtful, and he had the shrewd faculty of knowing when to smile. His eyes were of such a bulge as to give him a spacious range of vision without having to turn his head, and while moving about in the discharge of his duty, he often saw sudden situations that were not intended for his entertainment.

Brooks was prepared for the meeting, and conducted himself with a dignity that would have cast no discredit upon the ablest floor-walker in Christendom. He had known that he could not fail to be impressed by one so closely allied by blood to Mr. George Witherspoon, but really he had not expected to meet a man of so distinguished a bearing, a traveler and a scholar, no doubt.

"Traveler enough to know that I have seen but little, and scholar enough to feel my ignorance," Henry replied.

"Oh, you do yourself an injustice, I am sure, but you do it gracefully. We shall meet often, of course. Mr. Witherspoon," he added, addressing the head of the Colossus, "we have just arrested that Mrs. McNutt."

"How's that? What Mrs. McNutt?"

"Why, the woman who was suspected of shop-lifting. This time we caught her in the act."

"Ah, hah. Have you sent her away?"

"Not yet. She begs for an interview with you—says she can explain everything."

"Don't want to see her; let her explain to the law."

"That's what I told her, sir."

Brooks bowed and withdrew. Old man Colton was already at his desk.

"Now, my son," said Witherspoon, aimlessly fumbling with some papers on his desk, "I should think that the first thing to be attended to is that statement for the newspapers. Wait a moment, and we will consult Brooks. He knows more in that line than any one else about the place." He tapped a bell. "Mr. Brooks," he said when a boy appeared. Brooks came, and Witherspoon explained.

"Ah, I see," said Brooks. "You don't want to give it to any one paper, for that isn't business. We'll draw off a statement and send it to the City Press Association, and then it will be given out to all the papers."

"That is a capital idea; you will help us get it up."

"Yes, sir," said Brooks, bowing.

"That will not be necessary," Henry protested, unable to disguise his disapproval of the arrangement. "I can write it in a very short time."

"Ah," Witherspoon replied, "but Brooks is used to such work. He writes our advertisements."

"But this isn't an advertisement, and I prefer to write it."

"Of course, if you can do it satisfactorily, but I should think that it would be better if done by a practiced hand."

"I think so too," Henry rejoined, "and for that reason I recommend my own hand. I have worked on newspapers."

"That so? It may be fortunate so far as this one instance is concerned, but as a general thing I shouldn't recommend it. Newspaper men have such loose methods, as a rule, that they never accomplish much when they turn their attention to business."

Henry laughed, but the merchant had spoken with such seriousness that he was not disposed to turn it off with a show of mirth. His face remained thoughtful, and he said: "We had several newspaper men about here, and not one of them amounted to anything. Brooks, your services will not be needed. In fact, two of them were dishonest," he added, when Brooks had quitted the room. "They were said to be good newspaper men, too. One of them came with 'Journalist' printed on his card; had solicited advertisements for nearly every paper in town. They were all understood to be good solicitors."

"What," said Henry, "were they simply advertising solicitors?"

"Why, yes; and they were said to be good ones."

"But you must know, sir, that an advertising solicitor is not a newspaper man. It makes me sick—I beg your pardon. But it does rile me to hear that one of these fellows has called himself a newspaper man. Of course there are honest and able men in that employment, but they are not to be classed with men whose learning, judgment and strong mental forces make a great newspaper."

So new a life sprang into his voice, and so strong a conviction emphasized his manner, that Witherspoon, for the first time, looked on him with a sort of admiration.

"Well, you seem to be loaded on this subject."

"Yes, but not offensively so, I hope. Now, give me the points you want covered."

"All right; sit here."

Henry took Witherspoon's chair; the merchant walked up and down the room. The points were agreed upon, and the writer was getting well along with his work when Witherspoon suddenly paused in his walk and said to some one outside: "Show him in here."

A pale and restless-looking young man with green neckwear entered the room. "Now, sir," the merchant demanded somewhat sharply, "what do you want with me? You have been here three or four times, I understand. What do you want?"

"We are not alone," the young man answered, glancing at Henry.

"State your business or get out."

"Well, it's rather a delicate matter, sir, and I didn't want anything to do with it, but we don't always have our own way, you know. Er—the editor of the paper"—

"What paper?"

"The Weekly Call. The editor sent me with instructions to ask you if this is true?"

He handed a proof-slip to the merchant, and Henry saw Witherspoon's face darken as he read it. The next moment the great merchant stormed: "There isn't a word of truth in it. It is an infamous lie from start to finish."

"I told him I didn't think it was true," said the young man, "but he talked as if he believed it; remarked that you never advertised with him anyway."

"Advertise with him! Why, I didn't know until this minute that such a paper existed. How much of an advertisement does he expect?"

"Hold on a moment!" Henry cried. "Let me kick this fellow into the street."

"Nothing rash," said Witherspoon, putting out his hand. "Sit down, Henry. It will be all right. It's something you don't understand." And speaking to the visitor, he added: "Send me your rates."

"I have them here, sir," he replied, shying out of Henry's reach. He handed a card to Witherspoon.

"Let me see, now. Will half a column for a year be sufficient?"

"Well, that's rather a small ad, sir."

Henry got up again. "I think I'd better kick him into the street."

"No, no; sit down there. Let me manage this. Here." The blackmailer had retreated to the door. "You go back to your editor and tell him that I will put in a column for one year. Wait. Has anybody seen this?" he added, holding up the proof-slip.

"Nobody, sir, and I will have the type distributed as soon as I get back."

"See that you do. Tell Brooks; he will send you the copy. Now get out. Infamous scoundrel!" he said when the fellow was gone. "But don't say anything about it at home, for it really amounts to nothing."

He tore the proof-slip into small fragments and threw them into the spittoon.

"What is it all about?" Henry asked.

"Oh, it's the foulest of fabrication. About a year ago there came a widow from Washington with a letter from one of our friends, and asked for a position in the store. Well, we gave her employment, and—and it is about her; but it really amounts to nothing."

"Why, then, didn't you let me kick the scoundrel into the street?"

"My dear boy, to a man who has the money it is easier to pay than to explain. The public is greedy for scandal, but looks with suspicion and coldness upon a correction. One is sweet; the other is tasteless. The rapid acquisition of wealth is associated with some mysterious crime, and men who have failed in wild speculations are the first to cry out against the millionaire. The rich man must pay for the privilege of being rich."

The statement was sent to the city press. It reminded the public of the abduction of Henry Witherspoon; touched upon the sensation created at the time, and upon the long season of interest that had followed; explained the part which the uncle had played, and delicately gave his cause for playing it. And the return of the wanderer was set forth with graphic directness.

At noon the merchant and Henry ate luncheon in a club where thick rugs hushed a foot-fall into a mere whisper of a walk, where servants, grave of countenance and low of voice, seemed to underscore the chilliness of the place. Henry was introduced to a number of astonished men, who said that they welcomed him home, and who immediately began to talk about something else; and he was shown through the large library, where a solitary man sat looking at the pictures in a comic weekly. After leaving the club they went to a tailor's shop, and then drove over the boulevards and through the parks. Witherspoon, with no pronounced degree of pride, had conducted Henry through the Colossus; he had been pleased, of course, at the young man's astonishment, and he must have been moved by a strong surge of self-glorification when his son wondered at the broadness of the Witherspoon empire, yet he had held in a strong subjection all signs of an unseemly pride. But when he struck the boulevard system, his dignified reserve went to pieces.

"Finest on earth; no doubt about that. Oh, of course, many years of talk and thousands of pages of print have paved the Paris boulevards with peculiar interest, but wipe out association, and where would they be in comparison with these? Look at that stretch. And a few years ago this land could have been picked up for almost nothing. Look at those flowers."

It was now past midsummmer, but no suggestion of a coming blight lay upon the flower-beds. "Look at those trees. Why, in time they will knock the New Haven elms completely out."

THE INTERVIEWERS.

When they reached home at evening they found that five reporters had been shown into the library and were waiting for them.

"Glad to see you, gentlemen," said Witherspoon, smiling in his way of pleasant dismissal, "but really that statement contains all that it is necessary for the public to know. We don't want to make a sensation of it, you understand."

"Of course not," one of the newspaper men replied.

"And," said the merchant, with another smile, "I don't know what else can be said."

But the smile had missed its aim. The attention of the visitors was settled upon Henry. There was no chance for separate interviews, and questions were asked by first one and then another.

"You had no idea that your parents were alive?"

"Not until after my uncle's death."

"Had he ever told you why you were in his charge?"

"Yes; he said that at the death of my parents I had been given to him."

"You of course knew the story of the mysterious disappearance of Henry Witherspoon."

"Yes; when a boy I had read something about it."

"In view of the many frauds that had been attempted, hadn't you a fear that your father might he suspicious of you?"

"No; I had forwarded letters and held proof that could not be disputed. The mystery was cleared up."

"How old are you?"

"I shall be twenty-five next—next"—

"December the fourteenth," Witherspoon answered for him.

"The truth is," said Henry, "uncle did not remember the exact date of my birth."

"Was your uncle a man of means?"

"Well, I can hardly say that he was. He speculated considerably, and though he was never largely successful, yet he always managed to live well."

"Were you engaged in any sort of employment?"

"Yes, at different times I was a reporter."

"It is not necessary that the public should know all this," said Witherspoon.

"But we can't help it," Henry replied. "The statement we sent out would simply serve to hone and strap public curiosity to a keen edge. I expected something of this sort. The only thing to do is to get through with it as soon as we can."

When the interview was ended Henry went to the front door with the reporters, and at parting said to them: "I hope to see you again, gentlemen, and doubtless I shall. I am one of you."

At dinner that evening Witherspoon was in high spirits. He joked—a recreation rare with him—and he told a story—a mental excursion of marked uncommonness.

"What, Henry, don't you drink wine at all?" the merchant asked.

"No, sir, I stand in mortal fear of it." The vision of a drunken painter, he always fancied, hung like a fog between him and the liquor glass.

"It's well enough, my son."

"None of the Craigs were drunkards," said Ellen, giggling.

"Ellen," Mrs. Witherspoon solemnly enjoined, "my mother's people shall not be made sport of. It is true that there were no drunkards among them. And why?"

"Because none of them got drunk, I should think," Henry ventured to suggest.

"That, of course, was one reason, my son, but the main reason was that they knew how to govern themselves."

The evening flew away with music and with talk of a long ago made doubly dear by present happiness. The hour was growing late. Witherspoon and Henry sat in the library, smoking. Ellen had gone to her room to draft a form for the invitation to Henry's reception, and Mrs. Witherspoon was on a midnight prowl throughout the house, and although knowing that everything was right, yet surprised to find it so.

"Now, my boy," said the merchant, "we will talk business. Your mother, and particularly your sister, thought it well for me to make you an allowance, and while I don't object to the putting of money aside for you, yet I should rather have you feel the manliness which comes of drawing a salary for services rendered. That is more American. You see how useful Brooks has made himself. Now, why can't you work yourself into a similar position? In the future, the charge of the entire establishment may devolve upon you. All that a real man wants is a chance, and such a chance as I now urge upon you falls to the lot of but few young men. Had such an opportunity been given to me when I was young, I should have regarded myself as one specially favored by the partial goddess of fortune."

He was now walking up and down the room. He spoke with fervor, and Henry saw how strong he was and wondered not at his great success.

"I don't often resort to figures of speech," Witherspoon continued, "but even the most practical man feels sometimes that illustration is a necessity. Words are the trademarks of the goods stored in the mind, and a flashy expression proclaims the flimsy trinket."

Was his unwonted indulgence in wine at dinner playing rhetorical tricks with his mind?

"I spoke just now of the partial goddess of fortune," the merchant continued, "in the hope that I might impress you with a deplorable truth. Fortune is vested with a peculiar discrimination. It appears more often to favor the unjust than the just. Ability and a life of constant wooing do not always win success, for luck, the factotum of fortune, often bestows in one minute a success which a life-time of stubborn toil could not have achieved. Therefore, I say to you, think well of your position, and instead of drawing idly upon your great advantage, add to it. Successful men are often niggardly of advice, while the prattling tongue nearly always belongs to failure; therefore, when a successful man does advise, heed him. I think that I should have succeeded in nearly any walk of life. Sturdy New England stock, the hard necessity for thrift, and the practical common school fitted me to push my way to the front. Don't think that I am boasting. It is no more of vanity for one to say 'I have succeeded' than to say 'I will succeed.'" He paused a moment and stood near Henry's chair. "You have the chance to become what I cannot be—one of the wealthiest men in this country." He sat down, and leaning back in his leather-covered chair, stretched forth his legs and crossed his slippered feet. He looked at Henry.

"To some men success is natural, and to others it is impossible," Henry replied. "I can well see that prosperity could not long have kept beyond your reach. Your mind led you in a certain direction, and instead of resisting, you gladly followed it. You say that you should have been a success in any walk of life, and while it is true that you would have made money, it does not follow that you would have found that contentment which is beyond all earthly price. I admit that the opportunity which you offer me is one of rarest advantage, but knowing myself, I feel that in accepting it I should be doing you an injustice. It may be so strange to you that you can't understand it, yet I haven't a single commercial instinct; and to be frank with you, that great store would be a penitentiary to me. Wait a moment." Witherspoon had bounded to his feet. "I am willing to do almost anything," Henry continued, "but I can't consent to a complete darkening of my life. I admit that I am peculiar, and shall not dispute you in your belief that my mind is not strong, but I am firm when it comes to purpose. To hear one say that he doesn't care to be the richest man in the country may strike you as the utterance of a fool, and yet I am compelled to say it. I don't want you to make me an allowance. I don't want"—

"What in God's name do you want, sir!" Witherspoon exclaimed. He was walking up and down the room, not with the regular paces which had marked his stroll a few moments before, but with the uneven tread of anger. "What in God's name can you ask?"

He turned upon Henry, and standing still, gave him a look of hard inquiry.

"I ask nothing in God's name, and surely nothing in my own. I knew that this would put you out, and I dreaded it, but it had to come. Suppose that at my age the opportunity to manage a cattle ranch had been offered you."

"I would have taken it; I would have made it the biggest cattle ranch in the country. It galls me, sir, it galls me to see my own children sticking up their noses at honest employment."

"Pardon me, but so far as I am concerned you are wrong. I seek honest employment. But what is the most honest employment? Any employment that yields an income? No; but the work that one is best fitted for and which is therefore the most satisfactory. If you had shaped my early life"—

"Andrew was a fool!" Witherspoon broke in. "He was crazy."

"But he was something of a gentleman, sir."

"Gentleman!" Witherspoon snorted; "he was the worst of all thieves—a child-stealer."

"And had you been entirely blameless, sir?"

"What! and do you reproach me? Now look here." He pointed a shaking finger at Henry. "Don't you ever hint at such a thing again. My God, this is disgraceful!" he muttered, resuming his uneven walk. "My hopes were so built up. Now you knock them down. What the devil do you want, sir!" he exclaimed, wheeling about.

"I will tell you if you will listen."

"Oh, yes, of course you will. It will no doubt do you great good to humiliate me."

"When you feel, sir, that I am humiliating you, one word is all you need to say."

"What's that? Come now, no foolish threats. What is it you want to do?"

"I have an idea," Henry answered, "that I could manage a newspaper."

"The devil you have."

"Yes, the devil I have, if you insist. I am a newspaper man and I like the work. It holds a fascination for me while everything else is dull. Now, I have a proposal to make, not a modest one, perhaps, but one which I hope you will patiently consider—if you can. It would be easy for you to get control of some afternoon newspaper. I can take charge of it, and in time pay back the money you invest. I don't ask you to give me a cent."

The merchant was about to reply, when Mrs. Witherspoon entered the room. "Why, what is the matter?" she asked.

Witherspoon resumed his seat, shoved his hands deep into his pockets, stretched forth his legs, crossed his feet and nervously shook them.

"What is the matter?" she repeated.

"Everything's the matter," Witherspoon declared. "I have suggested"—he didn't say demanded—"that Henry should go into the store and gradually take charge of the whole thing, and he positively refuses. He wants to ran a newspaper." The merchant grunted and shook his feet.

"But is there anything so bad about that?" she asked. "I am sure it is no more than natural. My uncle Louis used to write for the Salem Monitor."

He looked at her—he did not say a word, but he looked at her.

"And Uncle Harvey"—

He grunted, flounced out of his chair and quitted the room.

"Mother," said Henry, getting up and taking her hand, "I am grieved that this dispute arose. I know that he is set in his ways, and it is unfortunate that I was compelled to cross him, but it had to come sooner or later."

"I am very sorry, but I don't blame you, my son. If you don't want to go into the store, why should you?"

They heard Witherspoon's jolting walk, up and down the hall.

"You have but one life here on this earth," she said, "and I don't see why you should make that one life miserable by engaging in something that is distasteful to you. But if your father has a fault it is that he believes every one should think as he does. Don't say anything more to him to-night."

When Henry went out Witherspoon was still walking up and down the hall. They passed, but took not the slightest notice of each other. How different from the night before. Henry lay awake, thinking of the dead boy, and pictured his eternal sleeping-place, hard by the stormy sea.

ROMPED WITH THE GIRL.

The morning was heavy and almost breathless. The smoke of the city hung low in the streets. Henry had passed through a dreamful and uneasy sleep. He thought it wise to remain in his room until the merchant was gone down town, and troublously he had begun to doze again when Ellen's voice aroused him. "Come on down!" she cried, tapping on the door. "You just ought to see what the newspapers have said about you. Everybody in the neighborhood is staring at us. Come on down."

Witherspoon was sitting on a sofa with a pile of newspapers beside him. He looked up as Henry entered, and in the expression of his face there was no displeasure to recall the controversy of the night before.

"Well, sir," said he, "they have given you a broad spread."

The reporters had done their work well. It was a great sensation. Henry was variously described. One report said that he had a dreaminess of eye that was not characteristic of this strong, pragmatic family; another declared him to be "tall, rather handsome, black-bearded, and with the quiet sense of humor that belongs to the temperament of a modest man." One reporter had noticed that his Southern-cut clothes did not fit him.

"He might have said something nicer than that," Ellen remarked, with a natural protest against this undue familiarity.

"I don't know why we should be spoken of as a pragmatic family," said Mrs. Witherspoon. "Of course your father has always been in business, but I don't see"—

Witherspoon began to grunt. "It's all right," said he. "It's all right." He had to say something. "Come, I must get down town."

"Shall I go with you?" Henry asked.

For a moment Witherspoon was silent. "Not unless you want to," he answered.

They sat down to breakfast. Henry nervously expected another outbreak. The merchant began to say something, but stopped on a half utterance and cleared his throat. "It is coming," Henry thought.

"I have studied over our talk of last night," said Witherspoon, "and while I won't say that you may be right, or have any excuse for presuming that you are right, I am inclined to indulge that wild scheme of yours for a while. My impression is that you'll soon get sick of it."

Mrs. Witherspoon looked at him thankfully. "And you will give him a chance, father," she said.

"Didn't I say I would? Isn't that exactly what I said? Gracious alive, don't make me out a grinding and unyielding monster. We'll look round, Henry, and see what can be done. Brooks may know of some opening. You'd better rest here to-day."

"I am deeply grateful, sir, for the concession you have made," Henry replied. "I know how you feel on the subject, and I regret"—

"All right."

"Regret that I was forced"—

"I said it was all right."

"Forced to oppose you, but I don't think that you'll have cause to feel ashamed of me."

"You have already made me feel proud of your manliness," said Witherspoon.

Henry bowed, and Mrs. Witherspoon gave her husband an impulsive look of gratitude. The merchant continued:

"You have refused my offer, but you have not presumed upon your own position. Sincerity expects a reward, as a rule, and when a man is sincere at his own expense, there is something about him to admire. You don't prefer to live idly—to draw on me—and I should want no stronger proof that you are, indeed, my son. It is stronger than the gold chain you brought home with you, for that might have been found; but manly traits are not to be picked up; they come of inheritance. Well, I must go. I will speak to Brooks and see if anything can be done."

Rain began to fall. How full of restful meditation was this dripping-time, how brooding with half-formed, languorous thoughts that begin as an idea and end as a reverie. Sometimes a soothing spirit which the sun could not evoke from its boundless fields of light comes out of the dark bosom of a cloud. A bright day promises so much, so builds our hopes, that our keenest disappointments seem to come on a radiant morning, but on a dismal day, when nothing has been promised, a straggling pleasure is accidentally found and is pressed the closer to the senses because it was so unexpected.

To Henry came the conviction that he was doing his duty, and yet he could not at times subdue the feeling that pleasant environment was the advocate that had urged this decision. But he refused to argue with himself. Sometimes he strode after Mrs. Witherspoon as she went about the house, and he knew that she was happy because be followed her; and up and down the hall he romped with Ellen. They termed it a frolic that they should have enjoyed years ago, and they laughingly said that from the past they would snatch their separated childhood and blend it now. It was a back-number pleasure, they agreed, but that, like an old print, it held a charm in its quaintness. She brought out a doll that had for years been asleep in a little blue trunk. "Her name is Rose," she said, and with a broad ribbon she deftly made a cap and put it on the doll's head. After a while Rose was put to sleep again—the bright little mummy of a child's affection, Henry called her—and the playmates became older. She told him of the many suitors that had sought to woo her; of rich men; of poor young fellows who strove to keep time to the quick-changing tune of fashion; of moon-impressed youths who measured their impatient yearning.

"And when are you going to let one of them take you away?" Henry asked. Holding his hand, she had led him in front of a mirror.

"Oh, not at all," she answered, smiling at herself and then at him. "I haven't fallen in love with anybody yet."

"And is that necessary?"

"Why, you know it is, goose. I'd be a pretty-looking thing to marry a man I didn't love, wouldn't I?"

"You are a pretty thing anyway."

"Oh, do you really think so?"

"I know it."

"You are making fun of me. If you had met me accidentally, would you have thought so?"

"Surely; my eyes are always open to the truth."

"If I could meet such a man as you are I could love him—'with a dreaminess of eye not characteristic of this strong, pragmatic family.'"

She broke away from him, but he caught her. "If I were not related to you," he said, "I would be tempted to kiss you."

"Oh, you'd be tempted to kiss me, would you? If you were not related to me I wouldn't let you, but as it is—there!"

His blood tingled. Her hair was falling about her shoulders. For a moment it was a strife for him to believe that she was his sister.

"Beautiful," he said, running his fingers through her hair. "Somebody said that the glory of a woman is her hair; and it is true. It is a glory that always catches me."

"Does it? Well, I must put up my glory before papa comes. Oh, you are such a romp; but I was just a little afraid of you at first, you were so sedate and dreamy of eye."

She ran away from him, and looking back with mischief in her eyes, she hummed a schottish, and keeping time to it, danced up the stairway.

When Witherspoon came to dinner he said that he had consulted Brooks and that the resourceful manager knew of a possible opening.

The owner of the Star, a politician who had been foolish enough to suppose that with the control of an editorial page he could illumine his virtues and throw darkness over his faults, was willing to part with his experiment. "I think that we can get it at a very reasonable figure," said Witherspoon. And after a moment's silence he added: "Brooks can pull you a good many advertisements in a quiet way, and possibly the thing may be made to turn oat all right. But I tell you again that I am very much disappointed. Your place is with me—but we won't talk about it. How came you to take up that line of work?"

"I began by selling newspapers."

Mrs. Witherspoon sighed, and the merchant asked: "And did Andrew urge it?"

"Oh, no. In fact I was a reporter before he knew anything about it."

Witherspoon grunted. "I should have thought," said he, "that your uncle would have looked after you with more care. Did you receive a regular course of training?" Henry looked at him. "At school, I mean."

"Yes, in an elementary way. Afterward I studied in the public library."

"A good school, but not cohesive," Witherspoon replied. "A thousand scraps of knowledge don't make an education."

"Father, you remember my uncle Harvey," said Mrs. Witherspoon.

"Hum, yes, I remember him."

"Well, his education did not prevent his having a thousand scraps of knowledge."

"I should think not," Witherspoon replied. "No man's knowledge interferes with his education."

"My uncle Harvey knew nearly everything," Mrs. Witherspoon went on. "He could make a clock; and he was one of the best school teachers in the country. I shouldn't think that education consists in committing a few rules to memory."

"No, Caroline, not in the committing of a thousand rules to memory, but without rule there is no complete education."

"I shouldn't think that there could be a complete education anyway," she rejoined, in a tone which Henry knew was meant in defense of himself.

"Of course not," said the merchant, and turning from the subject as from something that could interest him but little, he again took up the newspaper project. "We'll investigate that matter to-morrow, and if you are still determined to go into it, the sooner the better. My own opinion is that you will soon get tired of it, in view of the better advantages that I urge upon you, for the worries of an experimental concern will serve to strengthen my proposal."

"I am resolved that in the end it shall cost you nothing," Henry replied.

"Hum, we'll see about that. But whatever you do, do it earnestly, for a failure in one line does not argue success in another direction. In business it is well to beware of men who have failed. They bring bad luck. Without success there may be vanity, but there can be but little pride, little self-respect."

Henry moved uneasily in his chair. "But among those who have failed," he replied, "we often find the highest types of manhood."

"Nonsense," rejoined the merchant. "That is merely a poetic idea. What do you mean by the highest type of manhood? Men whose theories have all been proved to be wrong? Great men have an aim and accomplish it. America is a great country, and why? Because it is prosperous."

"I don't mean that failure necessarily implies that a man's aim has been high," said Henry, "neither do I think that financial success is greatness. But our views are at variance and I fear that we shall never be able to reconcile them. I may be wrong, and it is more than likely that I am. At times I feel that there is nothing in the entire scheme of life. If a man is too serious we call him a pessimist; if he is too happy we know that he is an idiot."

"Henry, you are too young a man to talk that way."

"My son," said Mrs. Witherspoon, "the Lord has made us for a special purpose, and we ought not to question His plans."

"No, mother," Ellen spoke up, "but we should like to know something about that especial part of the plan which relates to us."

"My daughter, this is not a question for you to discuss. Your duty in this life is so clearly marked out that there can be no mistake about it. With my son it has unfortunately been different."

The girl smiled. "A woman's duty is not so clearly marked out now as it used to be, mother. As long as man was permitted to mark it out her duty was clear enough—to him."

"Hum!" Witherspoon grunted, "we are about to have a woman's advancement session. Will you please preside?" he added, nodding at Ellen. She laughed at him. He continued: "After a while Vassar will be nothing but a woman's convention. Henry, we will go down to-morrow and look after that newspaper."

ACKNOWLEDGED BY SOCIETY.

The politician was surprised. He had not supposed that any one even suspected that he wanted to get rid of the Star; indeed, he was not aware that the public knew of his ownership of that paper. It was a very valuable piece of property; but unfortunately his time was so taken up with other matters that he could not give it the attention it deserved. Its circulation was growing every day, and with proper management its influence could be extended to every corner of the country. Witherspoon replied that he was surprised to hear that the paper was doing so well. He did not often see a copy of it. The politician and the merchant understood each other, and the bargain was soon brought to a close.

And now the time for the reception was at hand. A florist's wagon stood in front of the door, and the young man thought, "This is my funeral." Every preparation gave him a shudder. Ellen laughed at him.

"It's well enough for you to laugh," said he, "for you are safe in the amphitheater while I am in the ring with the bull."

"Why, you great big goose, is anybody going to hurt you?"

"No; and that's the trouble. If somebody were to hurt me, I could relieve myself of embarrassment by taking up revenge."

At the very eleventh hour of preparation he was not only reconciled to the affliction of a reception, but appeared rather to look with favor upon the affair. And it was this peculiar reasoning that brought him round: "I am here in place of another. I am not known. I am as a writer who hides behind a pen-name."

The evening came with a rumble of carriages. An invitation to a reception means, "Come and be pleased. Frowns are to be left at home." The difference between one society gathering and another is the difference that exists between two white shoes—one may be larger than the other. Witherspoon was lordly, and in his smile a stranger might have seen a life of generosities. And with what a welcoming dignity he took the hand that in its time had cut the throats of a thousand hogs. Diamonds gleamed in the mellowed light, and there were smiles none the less radiant for having been carefully trained. The evening was warm. There was a wing-like movement of feathered fans. Scented time was flying away.

The guests were gone, and Henry sat in his room. He had thrown off the garments which convention had prescribed, and now, with his feet on a table, he sat smoking an old black pipe that he had lolled with on the mountains of Costa Rica. The night which was now ending waved back for review. Ellen, beautiful in an empire gown, golden yellow, brocaded satin. "Why did you try to dodge this?" she had asked in a whisper. "You are the most self-possessed man in the house. Can't you see how proud we all are of you? I have never seen mother so happy."

The perfume of praise was in the air. "Oh, I think your brother is just charming," a young woman had said to Ellen, and Henry had caught the words.

"He is like my mother's people." Mrs. Witherspoon was talking to a woman whose hair had been grayed and who appeared to enjoy the distinction of being an invalid. The Coltons and the Brooks contingent had smeared him with compliments. There was a literary group, and the titles of a hundred books were mentioned; one writer was charming; another was horrid. There was the group of household government, and the servant-girl question, which has never been found in repose, was tossed from one woman to another and caught as a bag of sweets. In the library was a commercial and real-estate gathering, and the field of speculation was broken up, harrowed and seeded down.

The black-bearded muser put his pipe aside, and from this glowing scene his thoughts flew away into a dark night when he stood in Ulmata, knocking at the door of a deserted house. He got up and stood at the window. Sparrows twittered. Threads of gray dawn streaked the black warp of night.

At morning there was another spread in the newspapers. The wonder of a few days had spent its force, and the Witherspoon sensation was done.

A DEMOCRACY.

The Star was printed in an old building where more than one newspaper had failed. The interior of the place was so comfortless in arrangement, so subject to unaccountable drafts of cold air in winter and breaths of hot oppression in summer, that it must have been built especially for a newspaper office. Henry found that the working force consisted mainly of a few young reporters and a large force of editorial writers. The weakness of nearly every newspaper is its editorial page, and especially so when the paper is owned by a politician. The new manager straightway began a reorganization. It was an easy matter to form an efficient staff, for in every city some of the best newspaper men are out of employment—the bright and uncertain writers who have been shoved aside by trustworthy plodders. He did not begin as one who knows it all, but he sought the co-operation of practical men. The very man who knew that the paper could not do without him was told that his services were no longer needed. In his day he had spread many an acre of platitudes; he had hammered the tariff mummy, and at every lick he had knocked out the black dust; he had snorted loud in controversy, and was arrogant in the certainty that his blowhard sentence was the frosty air of satire. He was the representative of a class. To him all clearness of expression was shallowness of thought, and brightness was the essence of frivolity. He soon found another place, for some of the Chicago newspapers still set a premium upon windy dullness.

Among the writers whom Henry decided to retain was Laura Drury. She wrote book reviews and scraps which were supposed to be of interest to women. Her room opened into Henry's, and through a door which was never shut he could see her at work. The brightness and the modesty of her face attracted him. She could not have been more than twenty years of age.

"Have you been long in newspaper work?" he asked, when she had come in to submit something to him.

"Only a short time," she answered, and returned at once to her desk. Henry looked at her as she proceeded with her work. Her presence seemed to refine the entire office. He fancied that her hair made the room brighter. His curiosity was awakened by one touch of her presence. He sought to know more of her, and when she had come in again to consult him, he said: "Wait a moment, please. How long have you been connected with this paper?"

"About three months, regularly."

"Had you worked on any other paper in the city?"

"No, sir; I have never worked on any other paper."

"Have you lived here long?"

"No, sir, I have been here only a short time. I am from Missouri."

"You didn't come alone, did you?"

She glanced at him quickly and answered: "I came alone, but I live with my aunt."

She returned to her work, and she must have discovered that he was watching her, for the next day he saw that she had moved her desk.

Henry had applied for membership in the Press Club, and one morning a reporter told him that he had been elected.

"Was there any opposition?" the editor asked.

"Not after the boys learned that you had been a reporter. You can go over at any time and sign the constitution."

"I'll go now. Suppose you come with me."

The Press Club of Chicago is a democracy. Money holds but little influence within its precincts, for its ablest members are generally "broke." There are no rules hung on its walls, no cool ceremonies to be observed. Its atmosphere invites a man to be natural, and warns him to conceal his vanities. Among that body of men no pretense is sacred. Here men of Puritan ancestry find it well to curb a puritanical instinct. A stranger may be shocked by a snort of profanity, but if he listens he will hear a bright and poetic blending of words rippling after it. A great preacher, whose sermons are read by the world, sat one day in the club, uttering the slow and heavy sentences of an oracle. He touched his finger tips together. He was discoursing on some phase of life; and an old night police reporter listened for a moment and said, "Rats!" The great man was startled. Accustomed to deliver his theories to a silent congregation, he was astonished to find that his wisdom could so irreverently be questioned. The reporter meant no disrespect, but he could not restrain his contempt for so presuming a piece of ignorance. He turned to the preacher and showed him where his theories were wrong. With a pin he touched the bubble of the great man's presumption, and it was done kindly, for when the sage arose to go he said: "I must confess that I have learned something. I fear that a preacher's library does not contain all that is worth knowing." And this, more than any of his sermons, proved his wisdom.

In the Press Club the pulse of the town can be felt, and scandals that money and social influence have suppressed are known there. The characters of public men are correctly estimated; snobs are laughed at; and the society woman who seeks to bribe the press with she cajolery of a smile is a familiar joke. Of course this is not wholly a harmonious body, for keen intelligence is never in smooth accord with itself. To the "kicker" is given the right to "kick," and keen is the enjoyment of this privilege. Every directory is the worst; every officer neglects his duty.

Literary societies know but little of this club, for literary societies despise the affairs of the real worker—they are interested in the bladdery essay written by the fashionable ass.

Henry was shown into a large room, brightly carpeted and hung with portraits. On a leather lounge a man lay asleep; at a round table a man sat, solemnly playing solitaire; and in one corner of the apartment sat several men, discussing an outrageous clause in the constitution that Henry had just signed. The new member was introduced to them. Among the number were John McGlenn, John Richmond and a shrewd little Yankee named Whittlesy. Of McGlenn's character a whole book might be written. An individual almost wholly distinct from his fellow-men; a castigator of human weakness and yet a hero-worshiper—not the hero of burning powder and fluttering flags, but any human being whose brain had blazed and lighted the world. Art was to him the soul of literature. Had he lived two thousand years ago, as the founder of a peculiar school of philosophy, he might still be alive. If frankness be a virtue, he was surely a reward unto himself. He would calmly look into the eyes of a poet and say, "Yes, I read your poem. Do you expect to keep on attempting to write poetry? But you may think better of it after a while. I wrote poems when I was of your age." He did not hate men because they were wealthy, but he despised the methods that make them rich. His temperament invited a few people to a close friendship with him, and gently warned many to keep a respectful distance. Aggressive and cutting he was, and he often said that death was the best friend of a man who is compelled to write for a living. He wrote a subscription book for a mere pittance, and one of the agents that sold it now lives in a mansion. He regarded present success as nothing to compare with an immortal name in the ages to come. He was born in the country, and his refined nature revolted at his rude surroundings, and ever afterward he held the country in contempt. In later years he had regarded himself simply as a man of talent, and when this decision had been reached he thought less of life. If his intellectual character lacked one touch, that touch would have made him a genius. When applied to him the term "gentleman" found its befitting place.

Careless observers of men often passed Richmond without taking particular notice of him. He was rather undersized, and was bald, but his head was shapely. He was so sensitive that he often assumed a brusqueness in order not to appear effeminate. His judgment of men was as swift as the sweep of a hawk, and sometimes it was as sure. He had taken so many chances, and had so closely noted that something which we call luck, that he might have been touched a little with superstition, but his soul was as broad as a prairie, and his mind was as penetrating as a drill; and a fact must have selected a close hiding-place to escape his search. Sitting in his room, with his plug of black tobacco, he had explored the world. Stanley was amazed at his knowledge of Africa, and Blaine marveled at his acquaintance with political history.

"We welcome you to our club," McGlenn remarked when Henry had sat down, "but are you sure that this is the club you wanted to join!"

Henry was surprised. "Of course I am. Why do you ask that question?"

"Because you are a rich man, and this is the home of modesty."

Henry reached over and shook hands with him. "I like that," said he, "and let me assure you that you have in one sentence made me feel that I really belong here, not because I am particularly modest, but because your sentiments are my own. I am not a rich man, but even if I were I should prefer this group to the hyphenated"—

"Fools," McGlenn suggested.

"Yes," Henry agreed, "the hyphenated fools that I am compelled to meet. George Witherspoon is a rich man, but his money does not belong to me. I didn't help him earn any of it; I borrowed money from him, and, so soon as I can, I shall return it with interest."

"John," said Richmond, "you were wrong—as you usually are—in asking Mr. Witherspoon that question, but in view of the fact that you enabled him to put himself so agreeably on record, we will excuse your lack of courtesy."

"I don't permit any man who goes fishing with any sort of ignorant lout, and who spends a whole day in a boat with him, to tell me when I am lacking in courtesy."

Richmond laughed, put his hand to his mouth, threw back his head and replied: "I go fishing, not for society, but for amusement; and, by the way, I think it would do you good to go fishing, even with an ignorant lout. You might learn something."

"Ah," McGlenn rejoined, "you have disclosed the source of much of your information. You learn from the ignorant that you may confound the wise."

Richmond put his hand to his mouth. "At some playful time," said he, "I might seek to confound the wise, but I should never so far forget myself as to make an experiment on you."

"Mr. Witherspoon," remarked McGlenn, "we will turn from this rude barbarian and give our attention to Mr. Whittlesy, who knows all about dogs."

"If he knows all about dogs," Henry replied, "he must be well acquainted with some of the most prominent traits of man."

"I am not talking much to-day," said Whittlesy, ducking his head. "I went fooling round the Board of Trade yesterday; and they got me, and they got me good."

"How much did they catch you for, Whit?" McGlenn asked.

"I won't say, but they got me, and got me good, but never mind. Ill go after 'em."

The man who had been asleep on the leather lounge got up, stretched himself, looked about for a moment, and then, coming over to the group, said: "What's all this bloody rot?" Seeing a stranger, he added, by way of apology: "I thought this was the regular roasting lay-out."

"Mr. Witherspoon," said Richmond, "let me introduce Mr. Mortimer, an old member of the club;" and when the introduction had been acknowledged, Richmond added: "Mortimer has just thought of something mean to say and has come over to say it. He dozes himself full of venom and then has to get rid of it."

"Our friend Richmond is about as truthful as he is complimentary," Mortimer replied.

"Yes," said Richmond, "but if I were no more complimentary than you are truthful, I should have a slam for everybody."