"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.



CHAPTER X.

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."



CHAPTER XI.

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.



CHAPTER XII.

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."

"Oh, ho, ho, no," McGlenn cried, and Richmond shouted: "Oh, I have been robbed."

Henry looked about for the cause of this commotion and saw a smiling man, portly and impressive, coming toward them with a dignified mince in his walk. And Mr. Flummers was introduced with half-humorous ceremony. He had rather a pleasant expression of countenance, and men who were well acquainted with him said that he had, though not so long of arm, an extensive reach for whisky. He was of impressive size, with a sort of Napoleonic head; and when hot on the trail of a drink, his voice held a most unctuous solicitude. He was exceedingly annoying to some people and was a source of constant delight to others. At one time he had formed the habit of being robbed, and later on he was drugged; but no one could conjecture what he would next add to his repertory. His troubles were amusing, his difficulties were humorous, his failures were laughable, and his sorrows were the cause for jest. He had a growing paunch, and when he stood he leaned back slightly as though his rotund front found ease in exhibition. As a law student he had aimed a severe blow at justice, and failing as an attorney, he had served his country a good turn. As a reporter he wrote with a torch, and wrote well. All his utterances were declamatory; and he had a set of scallopy gestures that were far beyond the successful mimicry of his fellows. The less he thought the more wisely he talked. Meditation hampered him, and like a rabbit, he was generally at his best when he first "jumped up."

He shook hands with Henry, looked at him a moment and asked: "Are you going to run a newspaper with all those old geysers you've got over there?"

The new member winced.

"Don't pay any attention to Flummers," John Richmond said.

"Oh, yes," Flummers insisted. "You see, I know all those fellows. Some of them were worn out ten years ago—but say, are you paying anything over there?"

"Yes, paying as much as any paper in the town."

"That's the stuff; but say, you can afford it. Who rang the bell? Did anybody ring? Boy," (speaking to a waiter), "we ought to have something to drink here."

"Do you want to pay for it?" Richmond asked.

"Oh, ho, ho, no, I'm busted. I've set 'em up two or three times to-day."

"Why, you stuffed buffalo robe, you"—

"Oh, well, it was the other day, then. I'm all the time buying the drinks. If it weren't for me you geysers would dry up. Say, John, touch the bell."

"Wait," said Henry. "Have something with me."

"Ah, now you command the respect of the commonwealth!" Flummers cried. "By one heroic act you prove that your life is not a failure. These fellows round here make me tired. Boy, bring me a little whisky. What are you fellows going to take? What! you want a cigar?" he added, speaking to Henry.

"Oh, I had a great man on my staff yesterday—big railroad man. Do you know that some of those fellows like to have a man show them how to spend their money? I see I'm posted for dues. This municipality must think I'm made of money."

When he caught sight of the boy coming with the tray, a peculiar light, such as painters give the face of Hope, illumined his countenance, and clasping his hands, he unctuously greeted himself.

"Mr. Flummers," said McGlenn, "we all love you."

"Oh, no."

"Yes; it is disreputable, but we love you. It was a long time before I discovered your beauties. I used to think that the men who loved you were the enemies of a higher grade of life, and perhaps they were, but I love you. You are a great man, Mr. Flummers. Nature designed you to be the president of a life insurance company."

"Well, say, I know that."

"Yes," continued McGlenn. "A life insurance company ought to employ you as a great joss, and charge people for the privilege of a mere glimpse of you."

"I shouldn't think," said Richmond, "that a man who had committed murder in Nebraska would be so extreme as to pose as the president of a life insurance company."

"Mr. Hammers, did you commit a murder in Nebraska?" McGlenn asked.

"Oh, no."

"But didn't you confess that you killed a man there?" Richmond urged.

"Oh, well, that was a mistake."

"What? The confession?"

"No, the killing. You see, I was out of work, and I struck a doctor for a job in his drug-store; and once, when the doctor was away, an old fellow sent over to have a prescription filled, and I filled it. And when the doctor returned he saw the funeral procession going past the store. He asked me what it meant, and I told him."

"Then what did he say?"

"He asked me if I got pay for the prescription. Oh, but he was a thrifty man!" Flummers clasped his hands, threw himself back and laughed with a jolting "he, he, he." "Well, I've got to go. Did anybody ring? Say, John"—to Richmond—"why don't you buy something?"

"What? Oh, you gulp, you succession of swallows, you human sink-hole! Flummers, I have bought you whisky enough to overflow the Mississippi."

"Oh, ho, ho, but not to-day, John. Past whisky is a scandal; in present whisky there lies a virtue. Never tell a man what you have done, John, lest he may think you boastful, but show him what you will do now, so that he may have the proof of your ability. Is it possible that I've got to shake you fellows? My time is too valuable to waste even with a mere contemplation of your riotous living."

He walked away with his mincing step. "There's a character," said Henry, looking after him. "He is positively restful."

"Until he wants a drink," Mortimer replied, "and then he is restless. Well, I must follow his example of withdrawal, if not his precept of appetite. I am pleased to have met you, Mr. Witherspoon, and I hope to see you often."

"I think you shall, as I intend to make this my resting-place."

"There is another character," said McGlenn, referring to Mortimer. "He is a very learned man, so much so that he has no need of imagination. He is a very learned man."

"And he is charmed with the prospect of saying a mean thing," Richmond replied. "I tell him so," he added, "though that is needless, for he knows it himself. His mind has traveled over a large scope of intellectual territory, and he commands my respect while I object to his methods."

The conversation took a serious turn, and Richmond flooded it with his learning. His voice was low and his manner modest—a great man who in the game of human affairs played below the limit of his abilities. McGlenn roused himself. When emphatic, he had a way of turning out his thumb and slowly hammering his knee with his fist. In his sky there was a cloud of pessimism, but the brightness of his speech threw a rainbow across it. He was a poet in the garb of a Diogenes. Many of his theories were wrong, but all were striking. Sometimes his sentences flashed like a scythe swinging in the sunshine.

Henry talked as he had never found occasion to talk before. These men inspired him, and in acknowledgment of this he said: "We may for years carry in our minds a sort of mist that we cannot shape into an idea. Suddenly we meet a man, and he speaks the word of life unto that mist, and instantly it becomes a thought."

Other members joined the group, and the conversation broke and flew into sharp fragments. McGlenn and Richmond began to wrangle.

"Your children may not read my books," said McGlenn, replying to some assertion that Richmond had made, "but your great-grandchildren will."

"Oh, that's possible," Richmond rejoined. "I can defend my immediate offspring, while my descendants may be left without protection. If you would tear the didacticism out of your books and inject a little more of the juice of human interest—hold on!" Richmond threw up his arm, as though warding off a blow. "When that double line comes between his eyes I always feel that he is going to hit me."

"I wouldn't hit you. I have some pity left."

"Or fear—which is it?"

"Not fear; pity."

"Why don't you reserve some of it for your readers?"

McGlenn frowned. "I don't expect you to like my books."

"Oh, you have realized the fact that the characters are wooden?"

"No, but I have realized that they are beyond your feeble grasp. I don't want you to like my books." He hammered his knee. "The book that wins your regard is an exceedingly bad production. When you search for facts you may sometimes go to high sources, but when you read fiction you go to the dogs. A consistent character in fiction is beyond you."

"There are no consistent characters in life," said Richmond, "and a consistent character in fiction is merely a strained form of art. In life the most arrant coward will sometimes fight; the bravest man at times lacks nerve; the generous man may sometimes show the spirit of the niggard. But your character in fiction is different. He must be always brave, or always generous, or always niggardly. He must be consistent, and consistency is not life."

"But inconsistency is life, and you are, therefore, not dead," McGlenn replied. "If inconsistency were a jewel," he added, "you would be a cluster of brilliants. As it is, you are an intellectual fault-finder and a physical hypochondriac."

"And you are an intellectual cartoon and a physical mistake."

"I won't talk to you. Even the semblance of a gentleman commands my respect, but I can't respect you. I like truth, but"—

"Is that the reason you seek me?"

"No, it is the reason I avoid you. Brutal prejudice never held a truth."

"Not when it shook hands with you," Richmond replied.

McGlenn got up, walked over to the piano, came back, looked at his watch, and addressing Richmond, asked:

"Are you going home, John?"

"Yes, John. Suppose we walk."

"I'll go you; come on."

They bade Henry good evening and together walked off affectionately.

"What do you think of our new friend?" Richmond asked as they strolled along.

"John, he has suffered. He is a great man."

"I don't know how he may turn out," Richmond said, "but I rather like him. Of course he hasn't fitted himself to his position—that is, he doesn't as yet feel the force of old Witherspoon's money. His experience has gone far toward making a man of him, but his changed condition may after a while throw his past struggles into contempt and thereby corrode his manliness."

"I don't think that he scraped up his principles from the Witherspoon side of the house," McGlenn declared. "If he had, we should at once have discovered in him the unmistakable trace of the hog. Oh, I don't think he will stay in the club very long. His tendency will be to drift away. All rich men are the enemies of democracy. If they pretend that they are not, they are hypocrites; if they believe they are not, it is because they haven't come to a correct understanding of themselves. The meanest difference that can exist between men is the difference that money makes. There is some compassion in an intellectual difference, and even in a difference of birth there is some little atonement to be expected, but a moneyed difference is stiff with unyielding brutality."

In this opinion they struck a sort of agreement, but they soon fell apart, and they wrangled until they reached a place where their pathway split. They halted for a moment; they had been fierce in argument. Now they were calm.

"Can't you come over to-night, John?" McGlenn asked.

"No, I can't possibly come to-night, John. I've got a piece of work on hand and must get it off. I've neglected it too long already."

But he did go over that night, and he wrangled with McGlenn until twelve o'clock.



CHAPTER XIII.

BUTTING AGAINST A WALL.

When we have become familiar with an environment we sometimes wonder why at any time it should have appeared strange to us; and it was thus with Henry as the months moved along. The mansion in Prairie Avenue was now home-like to him, and the contrasts which its luxurious belongings were wont to summon were now less sharp and were dismissed with a growing easiness. Feeling the force which position urges, he worked without worry, and conscious of a certain ability, he did not question the success of his plans. But how much of the future did he intend these plans to cover? He turned from this troublesome uncertainty and found satisfaction in that state of mind which permits one day to forecast the day which is to follow, and on a futurity stretching further than this he resolutely turned his back. In his work and in his rest at the Press Club, whither he went every afternoon, he found his keenest pleasure. He was also fond of the theater, not to sit with a box party, but to loiter with Richmond—to enjoy the natural, to growl at the tame, and to leave the place whenever a tiresome dialogue came on. Ellen sometimes drew him into society, and on Sundays he usually went with Mrs. Witherspoon to a Congregational church where a preacher who had taught his countenance the artifice of a severe solemnity denounced the money-chasing spirit of the age at about double the price that he had received in the East.

The Witherspoons had much company and they entertained generously, though not with a showy lavishness, for the old man had a quick eye for the appearance of waste. It was noticeable, too, that since Henry came young women who were counted as Ellen's friends were more frequent with their visits. Witherspoon rarely laughed at anything, but he laughed at this. His wife, however, discovered in it no cause for mirth. A mother may plan the marriage of her daughter, for that is romantic, but she looks with an anxious eye upon the marriage of her son, for that is serious.

One evening, when Witherspoon and Henry had gone into the library to smoke, the merchant remarked: "I want, to talk to you about the course of your paper."

"All right, sir."

The merchant stood on the hearth-rug. He lighted his cigar, turned it round and round, and then said:

"Brooks called my attention this afternoon to an article on working girls. Does it meet with your approval?"

"Why, yes. It was a special assignment, and I gave it out."

"Hum!" Witherspoon grunted. He sat down in his leather-covered chair, crossed his legs, struck a match on the sole of his slipper, relighted his cigar, which he had suffered to go out, and for a time smoked in silence.

"Is there anything wrong about it?" Henry asked.

"I might ask you if there is anything right about it," Witherspoon replied. "'The poor ye have with you always,' was uttered by the Son of God. It was not only a prophecy, but a truth for all ages. There are grades in life, and who made them? Man. Ah, but who made man? God. Then who is responsible for the grades? Nature sets the example of inequality. One tree is higher than another." His cigar had gone out. He lighted it again and continued: "Writers who seek to benefit the poor of ten injure them—teach them a dissatisfaction which in its tarn brings a sort of reprisal on the part of capital."

"I don't agree with you," said Henry.

"Of course not."

"I have cause to know that you are wrong, sir."

"You think you have," the merchant replied.

"It is true," Henry admitted, "that we shall always have the poor with us."

"I thought so," said Witherspoon.

"But it is not true that an attempt to aid them is harmful. Their condition has steadily improved since history "—

"You are a sentimentalist."

"I am more than that," said Henry. "I am a man."

"Hum! And are you more than that?"

"How could I be more?"

"Easily enough. You could be an anarchist."

"And is that a step higher?"

"Wolves think so."

"But I don't"

"I hope not."

They sat in silence. The young man was angry, but he controlled himself.

"It is easy to scatter dangerous words in this town," said the merchant. "And, sir,"—he broke off, rousing himself,—"look at the inconsistency, the ridiculousness of your position. I employ more than a thousand people; my son says that I oppress them. I"—

"Hold on; I didn't say that. I don't know of any injustice that you inflict upon your employes; but I do know of such wrongs committed by other men. But you have shown me that the condition of those creatures is hopeless."

"What creatures?"

"Women who work for a living."

"And do you know the cause of their hopelessness?"

"Yes; poverty and oppression."

"Ah, but what is the cause of their poverty?"

"The greed of man."

"Oh, no; the appetite of man—whisky. Nine out of ten of those so-called wretched creatures can trace their wretchedness to drink."

"But it is not their fault."

"Oh!"

Henry was stunned. He saw what a wall he was butting against. "And is this to go on forever?" he asked.

"Yes, forever. 'The poor ye have with you always.'"

"But present conditions may be overturned."

"Possibly, but other conditions just as bad, or even worse, will build on the ruins. That is the history you spoke of just now."

"But slavery was swept away—and, let me affirm," he suddenly broke off, "that the condition of the poorer people in this town is worse than the slavery that existed in the South. From that slavery the government pointed toward freedom, and mill-owners in the North applauded—men, too, mind you, who were the hardest of masters. I can bring up now the picture of a green lane. I can see an old negro woman sweeping the door-yard of her cabin, and she sings a song. Her husband is at work in the field, and her happy children are fishing in the bayou. That is the freedom which the government pointed out—the freedom which a God-inspired Lincoln proclaimed. But do you hear any glad songs among the slaves in the North? Let me tell you, sir, that we are confronted with a problem that is more serious than that which was solved by Lincoln."

Witherspoon looked at him as though he could think of no reply. At one moment he seemed to be filling up with the gathering impulses of anger; at another he appeared to be humiliated.

"Are you my son?" he asked.

"Presumably. An impostor would yield to your demands; he would win your confidence that he might steal your money."

"Yes," said the merchant, and he sat in silence.

Henry was the first to speak. "If you were poor, and with the same intelligence you have now, what would you advise the poor man to do?"

"I should advise him to do as I did when I was poor and as I do now—work. Now, let me tell you something: Last year your mother and I gave away a great deal of money—we do so every year. Does that look as if I am grinding the poor? You have hurt me."

"I am sorry. But if I have hurt you with a truth, it should make you think."

Witherspoon looked at him, and this time it was with resentment. "What! you talk about making me think? Young man, you don't know what it is to think. You are confounded with the difference between sentimentalism and thought. You go ahead and print your newspaper and don't worry about the workingwoman. Her class will be larger and worse off, probably, a hundred years after you are dead."

"Yes, but before that time her class may rise up and sweep everything before it. A democracy can't long permit a few men to hold all the wealth. But there's no good to come from a discussion with you."

"You are right," said Witherspoon, "but hold on a moment. Don't go away believing that I have no sympathy for the poor. I have, but I haven't time to worry with it. There is no reason why any man should be poor in this country."

Henry thought of a hundred things to say, but said nothing. He knew that it was useless; he knew that this man's strength had blinded him to the weakness of other men, and he felt that American aristocracy was the most grinding of all aristocracies, for the reason that a man's failure to reach its grade was attributable to himself alone.



CHAPTER XIV.

A DIFFERENT HANDWRITING.

Henry bade Witherspoon good night and went to his room. A fire was burning in the grate. At the window there was a rattle of sleet. He lighted his old briar-root pipe and sat down. He had, as usual, ceased to argue with himself; he simply mused. He acknowledged his weakness, and sought a counteracting strength, but found none. But why should he fight against good fortune? It was not his fault that certain conditions existed. Why not starve the past and feed the present? But he had begun to argue, and he shook himself as though he would be freed from something that had taken hold of him, and he got up and stood at the window. How raw the night! And as he stood there, he fancied that the darkness and the sleet of his boyhood were trying to force their way into the warmth and the light of his new inheritance. He turned suddenly about, and bowing with mock politeness, said to himself: "You are a fool." He lighted his pipe afresh, and sat down to work. Some one tapped at the door. Was it Witherspoon come to deliver another argument, and to decide again in his own favor? No, it was Ellen. She had been at the theater.

"You bring roses out of the storm," said Henry, in allusion to the color of her cheeks.

"But I don't bring flattery. Gracious! I am chilled through." She took off her gloves and held her hands over the grate. "Everybody's gone to bed, and I didn't know but you might be here, scribbling. Goodness, what's that you've been smoking?"

"A pipe."

She turned from the fire and shrugged her shoulders. "Couldn't you get a cigar? Why do you smoke that awful thing?"

"It is an altar of the past, and on it I burn the memories of its day," he answered, smiling.

"Well, I think I would get a new altar and burn incense for the present! Oh, but I've had the stupidest evening."

"Wasn't the play good?"

"No, it was talk, talk, with a stress laid on nothing. And then my escort wasn't particularly entertaining."

"Who?"

"Oh, a Mr. Somebody. What have you been doing all the evening?"

"Something that I found to be worse than useless. Father and I have been locking horns over the—not exactly the labor question, but over the wretchedness of working-women."

"What do you know about the wretchedness of working-women?" she asked.

"What do I know about it? What can I help knowing about it? How can I shut my eyes against it?"

"I don't see why they are so very wretched. They get pay, I'm sure. Somebody has to work; somebody has to be poor. What are you writing?"

"The necessary rot of an editorial page." he answered.

"Why, how your handwriting has changed," she said, leaning over the table.

"How so?"

"Why, this is so different from the letters you wrote before you came home."

He did not reply immediately; he was thinking. "Pens in that country cut queer capers," he said. "Where are those letters, anyway?"

"Mother has put them away somewhere."

"I should like to see them again."

"Why?"

"Oh, on account of the memories they hold. Get them for me, and I will give you a description of my surroundings at the time I wrote them."

"Why, what a funny fellow you are! Can't you give me a description anyway?"

"No, not a good one."

"But I don't want to wake mother, and I don't know that I can find the letters."

"Go and see."

"Oh, you are so headstrong."

She went out, and he walked up and down the room, and then stood again at the window. Ellen returned.

"Here they are."

"Did you wake mother?"

"No, but I committed burglary. I found the key and unlocked her trunk, and all to please you."

"Good, and for the first time burglary shall be repaid with gratitude."

He took the letters and looked at the sprawling characters drawn by the hand of his friend. "When I copied this confession," said he, "I was heavy of heart. I was sitting in a small room, looking far down into a valley where nature seemed to keep her darkness stored, and from, another window, in the east, I could see a mountain where she made her light."

"Go on," she said, leaning with her elbows on the table.

He began to walk across the room, from the door to the grate, and to talk as one delivering a set oration. "And I had just finished my work when a most annoying monkey, owned by the landlord, jumped through the window. I was so startled that I threw the folded papers at him"—

"What have you done!" she cried.

He had thrown the letters into the fire, he sprang forward, and snatching them, threw them on the hearth and stamped out the blaze.

"Oh, I do wish you hadn't done that," she said, hoarse with alarm. "Mother reads these letters every day, and—oh, I do wish you hadn't done it! They are all scorched—ruined, and I wouldn't have her know that I took them out of her trunk for anything. What shall we do about it? Oh, I know you didn't mean to do it." He had looked appealingly at her. "I wish I hadn't got them."

"It is only the copy of the confession that is badly burned. The original is here on the table," he said.

"I know, but what good will that do? The letters are so scorched that it won't do to return them."

"But I can copy them," he replied.

"Oh, you genius!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands.

"Thank you," he said, bowing. Then he added: "Let me see—this paper won't do. Where can we get some fool's-cap?"

"There must be some in the library," she answered. "I'll slip down and see."

She hastened down-stairs and soon returned with the paper. "I feel like a burglar," she said.

"And I am a forger," he replied.

"Won't take you long, will it?"

"No."

The work was soon completed. The scorched letters were thrown into the fire. "She will never know the difference," said Ellen. "It is a sin to deceive her, but then, following the burglary, deception is a kindness; and there can't be so very much wickedness in a sin that keeps one from being unhappy."

"Or keeps one from being discovered," he suggested. She laughed, not mirthfully, but with an attempt at self-consolation. "This is our first secret," she said, as she opened the door.

"And I think you will keep it," he replied, smiling at her.

She looked at him for a moment and rejoined: "Indeed, fellow-criminal! And if you didn't smoke that horrid pipe, what a lovable convict you would make."

When she was gone he stood again at the window. The night was breathing hard. He spoke to himself with mock concern: "Two hours ago you were simply a fool, but now you are a scoundrel."



CHAPTER XV.

TOLD HIM HER STORY.

When he awoke the next morning his blood seemed to be clogged somewhere far from the seat of thought, and then it came with a leap that brought back the night before. "But I won't argue with you," he said, turning over. "Argue," he repeated. "Why, it's past argument now. I will simply do the best I can and let the worst take care of itself. But I do despise a vacillator, and I am one. The old man maybe right. Nature admires strength and never pities the weak. And what am I to do if I'm not to carry out my part of this programme? The trial is over," he said as he got up. "I am Henry Witherspoon."

He was busy in his room at the office when Brooks entered.

"Well, hard at it, I see."

"Yes. Sit down; I'll be through with this in a moment."

He sat himself back from the desk, and Brooks asked, "Can't you go out to lunch with me?"

"Isn't time yet."

"Hardly, that's so," Brooks admitted, looking at his watch. "I happened to have business in this neighborhood and thought I'd drop in. Say," he added in a lower tone, and nodding his head toward the door of the adjoining room, "who is she?"

"The literary reviewer."

"She's a stunner. What's her name?"

"Miss Drury."

"You might introduce me."

"She's busy."

"Probably she'd go to lunch with us."

"She refuses to go out with any one."

"Hasn't been here long, eh?" That was the floorwalker's idea. "Well, I must get back, if you can't go with me. So long."

Henry took a book into Miss Drury's room. "Here's something that was sent to me personally," said he, "but treat it as you think it deserves."

She looked up with a suggestion of a smile. "Are you willing to trust the reputation of your friends to me?" she asked.

"I am at least willing to let you take charge of their vanity."

"Oh, am I so good a keeper of vanity?"

"No, you are so gentle an exterminator of it."

"Thank you," she said, laughing. Her hair seemed ready to break from its fastenings, and she gave it those deft touches of security which are mysterious to man, but which a little girl practices on a doll.

"You have wonderful hair," he said.

And she answered: "I'm going to cut it off."

This is woman's almost invariable reply to such a compliment. Henry knew that she would say it, and she knew that she would not cut it off, and they both laughed.

"How did you happen to get into newspaper work?" he asked.

Her face became serious. "I had to do something," she answered, "and I couldn't do anything else. My mother was an invalid for ten years, and I nursed her, read to her day and night. Sometimes in the winter she couldn't sleep, and I would get up and amuse her by writing reviews of the books I had read. It was only play, but after she was dead I thought that I might make it earnest."

"And your father died when you were very young, I suppose."

She looked away, and with both hands she began to touch her hair again. "Yes," she said.

"Tell me about him."

"Why about him?"

"I don't know. Because you have told me about your mother, I suppose."

"And are you so much interested in me?" she asked, looking earnestly at him.

"Yes."

"I ought not to tell you, but I will. We lived in the country. My father was"—She looked about her and then at him. "My father was a drunkard, but my mother loved him devotedly. One day he went to the village, several miles away, and at evening he didn't come home, and my mother knew the cause. It was a cold, snowy night. Mother stood at the gate, holding a lantern. She wouldn't let me stand there with her, it was so cold, but I was on my knees in a chair at the window, and I could see her. She stood there so long, and it seemed so cruel that I should be in a warm room while she was out in the cold, that I slipped out and closed the door softly after me. I stood a short distance behind her, and I had not been standing there long when a horse, covered with snow, came stumbling out of the darkness. Mother called me, and I ran to her. We went down the road, holding the lantern first one side, then the other, that we might see into the corners of the fences. We found him lying dead in the road, covered with snow. Mother was never well after that night—but really I am neglecting my work."

He returned to his desk. The proof-sheets of a leading article were brought to him, but he sat gazing at naught that he could see.

"Are you done with those proofs?" some one asked.

"Take them away," he said, without looking up. He sat for a long time, musing, and then he shook himself, a habit which he had lately formed in trying to free himself from meditations that sought to possess him.

He went out to luncheon, and just as he was going into a restaurant some one spoke to him. It was old man Colton.

"My dear Mr. Witherspoon," said the old man, "come and have a bite to eat with me. Ah, come on, now; no excuse. Let's go this way. I know of a place that will just suit you. This way. I'm no hand for clubs—they bore me; they are newfangled."

The old man conducted him into a basement restaurant not noticeable for cleanliness, but strong with a smell of mutton.

"Now, suppose we try a little broth," said the old man, when they had sat down. "Two bowls of mutton broth," he added, speaking to the waiter. "Ah," he went on, "you may talk about your dishes, but at noontime there is nothing that can touch broth. And besides," he added, in a whisper, "there's no robbery in broth. These restaurant fellows are skinners of the worst order. I'll tell you, my dear Mr. Witherspoon, everything teaches us to practice economy. We must do it; it's the saving clause of life. Now, what could be better than this? Go back to work, and your head's clear. My dear Mr. Witherspoon, if I had been a spendthrift, I should not only be a pauper—I should have been dead long ago."

He continued to talk on the virtues of economy. "Won't you have some more broth?"

"No, thank you."

"Won't you have something else?" he asked, in a tone that implied extreme fear.

"No, I'm not hungry to-day."

This announcement appeared greatly to relieve the old man. "Oh, you'll succeed in life, my dear young man; but really you ought to come into the store with us. It would do your father so much good; he would feel that he has a sure hold on the future, you understand. You don't know what a comfort Brooks is to me. Why, if my daughter had married a man in any other line, I—well, it would have been a great disappointment. Are you going back to work now?"

"No; to the Press Club."

"Why don't you come to see us oftener?"

"Oh, I'm there often enough, I should think—two or three times a week."

"Yes, of course, but we are all so anxious that you should become interested in our work. Don't discourage yourself with the belief that a man brought up in the South is not a good business man. I am from the South, my dear Mr. Witherspoon."

They had reached the sidewalk, and the roar from the street impelled the old man to force his squeaky voice into a split shout.

"Southern man"—He was bumped off by the passing throng, but he got back again and shouted: "Southern man has just as good commercial ability as anybody. Well, I must leave you here."



CHAPTER XVI.

AN AROUSER OF THE SLEEPY.

In the Press Club Henry found Mr. Flummers haranguing a party of men who sat about the round table. He stood that he might have room in which to scallop his gestures, and he had reached a climax just as Henry joined the circle. He waited until all interruptions had ceased and then continued: "Milwaukee was asleep, and I was sent up there to arouse it. But I shook it too hard; I hadn't correctly measured my own strength. The old-timers said, 'Let us doze,' but I commanded, 'Wake up here now, and get a move on you,' and they had to wake up. But they formulated a conspiracy against me, and I was removed."

"How were you removed, Mr. Flummers?" McGlenn asked.

"Oh, a petition, signed by a thousand sleepy citizens, was sent down here to my managing editor, and I was requested to come away. Thus was my Milwaukee career ended, but it ended in a blaze that dazzled the eyes of the old-timers." He cut a scallop. "But papa was not long idle. The solid South wanted him. They knew that papa was the man to quiet a disturbance or compel a drowsy municipality to get up and rub its eyes. Well, I went to Memphis. What was the cause of the great excitement that followed?" He tapped his forehead. "Papa's nut. But again had he underestimated himself; again was he too strong for the occasion. He tossed up the community in his little blanket, and while it was still in the air, papa skipped, and the railroad train didn't go any too fast for him."

"And was that the time you went over into Arkansas and murdered a man?" Richmond asked.

"Oh, no; you are mixing ancient history with recent events. But say, John, you haven't bought anything to-day."

"Why, you paunch-bulging liar, I bought you a drink not more than ten minutes ago."

"But you owed me that one."

"Get out, you nerveless beef! Under the old law for debt I could put you in prison for life."

"Oh, no."

"Do you really need a drink, Mr. Flummers?" McGlenn asked.

"Yes."

"And you don't think that there is any mistake about it?"

"No."

"Well, then, as one who has been compelled to love you, I will buy you a drink."

"Good stuff. Say, Whit, touch the bell over there, will you?"

"Touch it yourself, you lout!"

With a profane avowal that he had never struck so lazy a party, Flummers rang the bell, and when the boy appeared, he called with hearty hospitality: "See what the gentlemen will have."

"Would you like something more?" Henry asked of Flummers, when the drinks had been served.

"Oh, I've just had one. But wait a minute. Say, boy, bring me a cigar."

When the cigar was brought, Flummers said, "That's the stuff!" and a moment later he broke out with, "Say, Witherspoon, why don't you kill the geyser that does the county building for your paper?"

"Why so?"

"Oh, he flashes his star and calls himself a journalist. What time is it? I must hustle; can't stay here and throw away time on you fellows. Say, John"—

Richmond shut him off with: "Don't call me John. A man—I'll say man out of courtesy to your outward form—a man that hasn't sense enough to lift a bass into a boat is not to be permitted such a familiarity. Out in a boat with him last summer and caught a big bass," Richmond explained to the company, "and brought it up to the side of the boat and told Flummers to lift it in, not thinking at the time that he hadn't sense enough, and he grabbed hold of the line and let the fish get away. It made me sick, and I had a strong fight with myself to keep from drowning him."

Flummers tapped his forehead. "Papa's nut says, 'Keep your hand out of a fish's mouth.' Oh, I don't want to go fishing with you again. No fun for me to pull a boat and see a man thrash the water. Say, did I take anything on you just now?" he suddenly broke off, addressing Henry.

"Yes, but you can have something else."

"Well, not now. I'll hold it in reserve. In this life it is well to have reserve forces stationed here and there. Who's got a car-ticket? I've got to go over on the West Side. What, are you all broke? What sort of a poverty-stricken gang have I struck? Well, I've given you as much of my valuable time as I can spare."

"I suppose you are getting used to this town," said Mortimer, when Flummers was gone.

"Yes, I am gradually making myself feel at home," Henry answered.

"You find the weather disagreeable, of course. We do, I know."

"I think that Chicago is great in spite of its climate," said Henry.

"If great at all, it is great in spite of a great many absences," McGlenn replied; "and in these absences it is mean and contemptible. To money it gives worship; to the song and dance man it pays admiring attention, but to the writer it gives neglect—the campaign of silence."

Richmond put his hand to his month and threw his head back. "The trouble with you, John"—

"There's no trouble with me."

"Yes, there is, and it is the trouble that comes to all men who form an estimate without having first taken the trouble to think."

"Gentlemen," said McGlenn, "I wish to call your attention to that remark. John Richmond advising people to think before they form their estimates. John, you are the last man to think before you form an estimate. Within a minute after you meet a man you are prepared to give your estimate of his character; you'll give a half-hour's opinion on a minute's acquaintance."

"Some people can't form an opinion of a man after a year's acquaintance with him, but I can. I go by a certain instinct, and when the wrong sort of man rubs up against me I know it. I don't need to wait until he has worked me before I find out that he is an impostor. But, as I was going to say, the trouble with you is that you forget the difference that exists between new and old cities. A new community worships material things; and if it pays tribute to an idea, it must be that idea which appeals quickest to the eye—to the commoner senses. And in this Chicago is no worse than other raw cities. Fifty years from now "—

"Who wants to live fifty years in this miserable world?" McGlenn broke in. "There is but one community in which the writer is at ease, and that is the community of death. It is populous; it is crowded with writers, but it holds an easy place for every one. The silence of that community frightens the rich but its democracy pleases the poor."

"I suppose, then, that you want to die."

"I do."

"But you didn't want to die yesterday?"

"Yes, it was the very time when I should have died—I had just eaten a good dinner. You don't know how to eat, John. You stuff yourself, John. Yes, you stuff yourself and think that you have dined. The reason is that you have never taken the trouble to become civilized. It's my misfortune to have friends who can't eat. But some of my friends can eat, and they are therefore great men. Tod Cowles strikes a new dish at a house on the North Side and softens his voice and says, 'Ah hah.' He is a great man, for he knows that he has discovered an additional pleasure to offset another trouble of this infamous life; and Colonel Norton is a great man—he knows how to eat; but you, John, are an outcast from the table, and therefore civilization cannot reach you. Civilization comes to the feast and asks, 'Where is John Richmond, whom I heard some of you say something about?' and we reply, 'He holds us in contempt,' and Civilization pronounces these solemn words: 'He who holds ye in contempt, the same will I banish.'"

"But," rejoined Richmond, "civilization teaches one of two things—to think or to become a glutton. Somehow I was kept away from the feast and had to accept the other teaching. I don't go about deifying my stomach and making an apostle of the palate of my month. When I eat"—

"But you don't eat; you stuff. I have sat down to a table with you, and after giving your order you would fill yourself so full of bread and pickles or anything within reach that you couldn't eat anything when the order was brought."

"That was abstraction of thought instead of hunger," Richmond replied.

"No, it was the presence of gluttony. Can you eat, Mr. Witherspoon?"

"I fear that I must confess a lack of higher civilization. I am not well schooled in anything, and I suppose that you must class me with Richmond—as a barbarian. I lack"—

"Art," McGlenn suggested. "But for you there is a chance. John Richmond is hopelessly gone."

"I sometimes feed my dogs on stewed tripe," said Whittlesy, "and the good that it does them teaches me that man is to be judged largely by what he eats."

"There is absolutely no use for all this bloody rot," Mortimer declared. "Eating is essential, of course, but I don't see how men can talk for an hour on the subject, and talk foolishly, at that."

"If eating is essential," Richmond replied, "it is a wonder that you don't kick against it."

"Ah, but isn't it a good thing that I don't kick against non-essentials? Wouldn't I be obliged to kick against this assemblage and its beastly rot?"

Mortimer sometimes emphasized his walk with a peculiar springiness of step, and with this emphasis he walked off, biting the stem of his pipe.

"I thought that by this time you would begin to show a weariness of the Press Club," McGlenn said to Henry.

"I don't see why you should have thought that. I said at first that I was one of you."

"Yes, but I didn't know but by this time you might have discovered your mistake."

"I made no mistake, and therefore could discover none. Let me tell you that between George Witherspoon's class and me there is but little affinity. You may call me a crank, and perhaps I am, but I was poor so long that I felt a sort of pride in the fight I was compelled to make. Poverty has its arrogance, and foppery is sometimes found in rags. I don't mind telling you that I have been strongly urged to take what is called my place in the world; but that place is so distasteful to me that I look on it with a shudder. I despise barter—I am compelled to buy, but I am not forced to sell. I am not a sentimentalist—if I were I should attempt to write poetry. I am not a philosopher—if I were I shouldn't attempt to run a newspaper. I am simply an ordinary man who has passed through an extraordinary school. And what I think are virtues may be errors."

McGlenn replied: "John is your friend. John thinks that you are a strong man—I don't know yet, but I do know that you please me when you are silent and that you don't displease me when you talk. You are strong enough to say, 'I don't know,' and a confession of ignorance is a step toward wisdom. Ask John a question to-day and he may say, 'I don't know,' but to-morrow he does know—he has spent a night with it. You are a remarkable man, Mr. Witherspoon," he added after a moment's reflection, "a very remarkable man. Your life up to a short time ago, you say, was a struggle; your uncle was a poor man. Suddenly you became the son of a millionaire. A weak nature would straightway have assumed the airs of a rich man; you remained a democrat. It was so remarkable that I thought the decision might react as an error, and therefore I asked if you had not begun to grow weary of this democracy, the Press Club."

McGlenn smiled, and his smile had two meanings, one for his friends and another for his enemies. His friends saw a thoughtful countenance illumined by an intellectual light; his enemies recognized a sarcasm that had escaped from a sly and revengeful spirit. But Henry was his friend.

"John," said Richmond, "you think"—

McGlenn turned out his thumb and began to motion with his fist. "I won't submit to the narrow dictum of a man who presumes to tell me what I think."

"But if nobody were to tell you, how would you find out what you think? Oh," he added, "I admit that it was presumption on my part. I was presuming that you think."

"I do think, and if some one must tell me what I think, let him be a thinking man."

"John, you cry out for thought, and are the first to strike at it with your dogmatism. You don't think—you dogmatize."

McGlenn turned to Henry. "I had two delightful days last week. John Richmond was out of town."

"Yes," said Richmond, putting his feet on a chair. "Falsehood gallops in riotous pleasure when Truth is absent. Hold on! I can stand one wrinkle between your eyes, but I am afraid of two."

"A man of many accomplishments, but wholly lacking in humor," said McGlenn, seeming to study Richmond for the purpose of placing an appraisement on him. "A man who worships Ouida and decries Sir Richard Steele."

"No, I don't worship Ouida, but I read her sometimes because she is interesting. As for Steele, he is decried by your praise. Say, John, you advised me to change grocers every month, and I don't know but it would be a good plan. An old fellow that I have been trading with has sent me a bill for eighty-three dollars."

"John, he probably takes you for a great man and wants to compliment you."

"I don't object to a compliment, but that was flattery," Richmond, replied, taking his feet off one chair and putting them on another. "Let's ride home, John; it's 'most too slippery to walk."

"All right. You have ruined my health already by making me walk with you. Come on; we'll go now."



CHAPTER XVII.

AN OLD MAN WOULD INVEST.

When Henry went home to dinner he found, already seated at the table, old man Colton, Mrs. Colton and Mrs. Brooks. The old Marylander got away from his soup, got off his chair, and greeted Henry with an effusive display of what might have been his pleasure at seeing the young man, but which had more of the appearance of a palavering pretense. He bowed, ducked his head first on one side and then on the other—and his colored handkerchief dangled at his coat-tails. He found his tongue, which at first he seemed to have lost, and with his bald head bobbing about, he appeared as an aged child, prattling at random.

"Hah, hah, delighted to see you again, my dear young man. Didn't know that I was coming when you were so kind as to take lunch with me to-day; ladies came in the afternoon; Brooks couldn't come with me, but he will be here later on. Hah, hah, they are taking excellent care of us, you see. Ah, you sit here by me? Glad."

Mrs. Colton was exceedingly feeble, and her daughter appeared as a very old-fashioned girl in a stylish habit—an old daguerreotype sort of face, smooth, shiny and expressionless.

"We have all been talking about you," Colton said, as Henry sat down. "Your mother and sister think you a very wonderful man, and my dear friend Witherspoon"—

"Brother Colton is from Maryland," Witherspoon remarked.

Colton laughed and ducked his head. Ah, the listless wit of the rich! It may be pointless, but how laughable is the millionaire's joke.

"But, my dear young man, we are determined to have you with us," Colton declared, when he had recovered himself. He nodded at Witherspoon.

"We are going to try," the great merchant replied. "By the way, I told Brooks that we'd have to press Bradley & Adams, of Atchison, Kansas. They are altogether too slow—there's no excuse for it."

"None in the world; none whatever," Colton agreed. He more than agreed, for there was alarm in his voice, and the alarm of an old miser is pitiable. "Gracious alive, can they expect people to wait always? Dear, what can the world be coming to when we are all to be cheated out of our rights? We'll have the law on them."

Money professes great love for the law, and not without cause. The rich man thinks that the law is his; and the poor man says, "It was not made for me."

Among the ladies Henry was the subject of a subdued discussion, and occasionally he heard Mrs. Colton say: "Such a comfort to you, and after so many years of separation. So manly." And then Mrs. Brooks would say: "Yes, indeed."

Henry noticed that Colton was not accompanied with his mutton-broth economy. It was evident that the old man was frugal only to his own advantage, and that his heartiness came at the expense of other men.

Brooks arrived soon after dinner. The women went to the drawing-room to talk about Henry, and to exchange harmless hypocrisies, and the men betook themselves to the library to smoke and to discuss plots that are known as enterprises. Country merchants were taken up, turned over, examined and put down ruined. Brooks was as keen and as ardent as a prosecuting attorney. Every man who owed a bill was under indictment.

"You see," he said to Henry, "we have to hold these fellows tight or they would get loose and smash us."

"You needn't apologize to me," Henry replied.

"Of course not, but as you say that you don't understand business, I merely wanted to show you to what extent we are driven."

"Oh, I assure you that it is awfully unpleasant," said Colton, "but we have to do it. And let me tell you, my dear young man, there is more crime than you imagine in the neglect of these fellows. In this blessed country there is hardly any excuse for a man's failure to meet his obligations. The trouble is that people who can't afford it live too high. Let them economize; let them be sensible. Why, I could have gone broke forty-odd years ago; hah, I could go broke now. Oh, I know that we are all accused of being hard, but you have no idea what the wealthy people of this city do for the poor. Just look at the charity balls; look at our annual showing, and you'll find it remarkable."

Henry felt that the charity of the rich was largely a species of "bluff" that they make at one another. It was not real charity; it was an advertisement—it was business.

"My dear friend Witherspoon," said Colton, mouthing his cigar—he did not smoke at home—"I am going to branch out more. I'm going to make investments. I see that it is safe, and I want you to help me."

"All right; how much do you want to invest?"

"Oh, I can place my hand on a little money—just a little. I've got some in stocks, but I've got a little by me."

"How much?"

This frightened him. "Oh, I don't know; really, I can't tell. But I think that I've got a little that I'd like to invest. But I'll talk to you about it to-morrow."

"All right."

"I think real estate would be about the right thing. I could soon turn it over, you know. Some wonderfully fortunate investments have been made that way. But I'll talk to you about it to-morrow."

Brooke said that he was in something of a hurry to get home, and the visitors took their leave early in the evening. Witherspoon returned to the library after going to the door with Colton. He sat down, stretched forth his feet, meditated for a few moments, and said: "The bark on a beech tree was never any closer than that old man, and yet he is kind-hearted."

"When kindness doesn't cost anything, I suppose," Henry suggested.

"Yes, that's true. He spoke of the wonderful showing of the charities of this city as though he were a prime mover in them, when, in fact, I don't think he ever contributed more than a barrel of flour in any one year. But he is a good business man, and if there were more like him there would be fewer bankrupts."

Ellen appeared at the door. "Henry, mother and I are going to your room to pay you a call."

"All right, I'll go up with you. Won't you come, father?"

"No, I believe not. Think I'll read a while and go to bed."

Henry's room was bright with a gladsome fire. On the table had been set a vase of moss roses, and beside the vase lay an old black pipe, tied with a blue ribbon. The young man laughed, and the girl said:

"Mother's doings. Ugh! the nasty thing!"

"If my son smoked a pipe when he was in exile," Mrs. Witherspoon replied, "he can do so now. None of the privileges of a strange land shall be denied him in his own home."

She sat in an easy-chair and was slowly rocking. To man a rocking-chair is a remembrancer of a mother's affection.

"Light your pipe, my son."

"No, not now, mother."

Ellen sat on an arm of Henry's chair. "Your hair would curl if you were to encourage it," she remarked.

"Has anybody said anything about curly hair?" he asked.

"No, but I was just thinking that yours might curl."

"Do you want me to look like Brooks?"

She frowned. "He kinks his with a hot poker. I don't like pretty men."

"How about handsome men?"

"Oh, I have to like them. You are a handsome man, you know."

"Nonsense," he replied.

"Your grandmother was a very handsome woman," said Mrs. Witherspoon. "She had jet-black hair, and her teeth were like pearls. Ellen, what did Mr. Coglin say when you gave him the slippers?" Mr. Coglin was a clergyman.

"Oh, he thanked me, of course. He couldn't very well have said, 'Take them away.'"

"But did you tell him that you embroidered them with your own hands?"

"Yes, I told him."

"Then what did he say?"

"He pretended to be greatly surprised, and said something, but I have forgotten what it was. Mrs. Brooks is awful tiresome with her 'Yes, indeed,' isn't she? Seems to me that I'd learn something else."

"She's hardly so tiresome with her 'Yes, indeed,' as her father is with his 'Hah, hah, my dear Mr. Witherspoon,'" Henry replied.

"But he is a very old man, my son," said Mrs. Witherspoon, "and you must excuse him. I have heard that he was quite aristocratic before the war."

"Oh, he never was aristocratic," Ellen declared. "Aristocracy hampered by extreme stinginess would cut but a poor figure, I should think."

"Have we set up a grill here?" Henry asked.

Mrs. Witherspoon nodded at Ellen as if to emphasize the rebuke, and the young woman exclaimed: "Oh, I'm singled out, am I? Who said that the old man's 'hah, hah,' was tiresome? You'd better nod at your son, mother."

But she gave her son never a nod. In her sight he surely could commit no indiscretion. A moment later the mother asked:

"Have they talked to you again about going into the store?"

"Oh, they hint at it occasionally."

"Ellen, can't you find a chair? I know your brother must he tired." Ellen got off the arm of Henry's chair, and soon afterward Mrs. Witherspoon took the vacated place. The young woman laughed, but said nothing. The mother fondly touched Henry's hair and smoothed it back from his forehead. "Don't you let them worry you, my son. They can't help but respect your manliness. Indeed," she added, growing strangely bold for one so gentle, "must a man be a merchant whether he will or not? And whenever you want to write about poor women, you do it. They are mistreated; they are made wretched, and by just such men as Brooks, too. What does he care for a woman's misery? And your father's so blind that he doesn't see it. But I see it. And I oughtn't to say it, but I will—he has the impudence to tell your father that I give too much money to the poor. It's none of his business, I'm sure."

There was a peculiar softness in Henry's voice when he replied: "I hope some time to catch him interfering with your affairs."

"Oh, but you mustn't say a word, my son—not a word; and I don't want your father to know that I have said anything."

"He shall not know, but I hope some time to catch Brooks interfering with your affairs. He has meddled with mine, but I can forgive that."

Henry walked up and down the room when Mrs. Witherspoon and Ellen were gone. With a mother's love, that gentle woman had found a mother's place in his heart. He looked at the rocking-chair. Suddenly he seized hold of the mantelpiece to steady himself. He had caught himself seriously wondering if she had rocked him years ago.



CHAPTER XVIII.

THE INVESTMENT.

It seemed to Henry that he had just dozed off to sleep when he was startled by a loud knock at the door.

"Henry, Henry!" It was Witherspoon's voice.

"Yes."

"Get up, quick! Old man Colton is murdered."

When he went down-stairs he found the household in confusion. Every one on the place had been aroused. The servants were whispering in the hall. Witherspoon was waiting for him.

"A messenger has just brought the news. Come, we must go over there. The carriage is waiting."

It was two o'clock. A fierce and cutting wind swept across the lake—the icy breath of a dying year. Not a word was spoken as the carriage sped along. At the door of Colton's home Witherspoon and Henry were confronted by a policeman.

"My orders are to let no one in," said the officer.

"I am George Witherspoon."

The policeman stepped aside. Brooks met them in the hall. He said nothing, but took Witherspoon's hand. The place was thronged with police officers and reporters.

Adjoining Colton's sleeping-apartment, on the second floor, was a small room with a window looking out on the back yard, and with one door opening from the hall. In this room, let partly into the wall, was an iron safe in which the old man kept "the little money" that he had decided to invest in real estate. The window was protected by upright iron bars. At night, a gas-jet, turned low, threw dismal shadows about the room, and it was the old man's habit to light the gas at bed-time and to turn it off the first thing at morning. He had lighted the gas shortly after returning from Witherspoon's house and had gone to bed, and it must have been about one o'clock when the household was startled by the report of a pistol. Brooks and his wife, whose room was on the same floor, ran into the old man's room. The place was dark, but a bright light burned in the vault-room. Into this room they ran, and there, lying on the floor, with money scattered about him, was the old man, bloody and dead, with a bullet-hole in his breast. But where was Mrs. Colton? They hastened back to her room and struck a light. The old woman lay across the bed, unable to move—paralyzed.

The first discovery made by the police was that the iron bars at the window, four in number, had been sawed in two; and then followed another discovery of a more singular nature. In the window, caught by the sudden fall of the sash, was a black frock coat. In one of the tail pockets was a briar-root pipe. The sash had fallen while the murderer was getting out, and, pulled against the sash, the pipe held the garment fast. One sleeve was torn nearly off. In a side pocket was found a letter addressed to Dave Kittymunks, general delivery, Chicago, and post-marked Milwaukee. Under the window a ladder was found.

At the coroner's inquest, held the next day, one of the servants testified that three days before, while the old man and Brooks were at the store and while the ladies were out, a man with black whiskers, and who wore a black coat, had called at the house and said that he had been sent to search for sewer-gas. He had an order presumably signed by Mr. Colton, and was accordingly shown through the house. He had insisted upon going into the vault-room, declaring that he had located the gas there, but was told that the room was always kept locked. He then went away. The servant had not thought to tell Mr. Colton.

A general delivery clerk at the post-office testified that the letter addressed to Dave Kittymunks had passed through his hands. The oddness of the name had fastened it on his memory. He did not think that he could identify the man who had received the letter, but he recalled the black whiskers. The letter was apparently written by a woman, and was signed "Lil." It was an urgent appeal for money.



CHAPTER XIX.

ARRESTED EVERYWHERE.

"Who is Dave Kittymunks?" was a question asked by the newspapers throughout the country. Not the slightest trace of him could be found, nor could "Lil" be discovered with any degree of certainty. But one morning the public was fed to an increase of appetite by an article that appeared in a Chicago newspaper. "Kittymunks came to Chicago about five months ago," said the writer, "and for a time went under the name of John Pruett. Fierce in his manner, threatening in his talk, wearing a scowl, frowning at prattling children and muttering at honest men, he repelled every one. Dissatisfied with his lot in life, he refused, even for commensurate compensation, to perform that honest labor which is the province of every true man, and like a hyena, he prowled about growling at himself and despising fate. The writer met him on several occasions and held out inducements that might lead to conversation, but was persistently repulsed by him. He frowned upon society, and set the grinding heel of his disapproval on every attempt to draw him out. Was there some dark mystery connected with his life? This question the writer asked himself. He execrated humanity; and, moody and alone, the writer has seen him sitting on a bench on the lake front, turning with a sullen look and viewing with suppressed rage the architectural grandeur towering at his back."

The article was written by Mr. Flummers. As the only reporter who could write from contact with the murderer, his sentences were bloated into strong significance. Fame reached down and snatched him up, and the blue light of his flambeau played about him.

"Pessimist as he is"—Flummers was holding forth among the night reporters at the central station—"Pessimist as he is, and a skeptic though he may be, papa goes through this life with his eyes open. Idle suggestion says, 'Shut your eyes, papa, and be happy,' but shrewdness says, 'Watch that fellow going along there.' I don't claim any particular credit for this; we are not to be vain of what nature has done for us, nor censured for what she has denied. We are all children, toddling about as an experiment, and wondering what we are going to be. Some of us fall and weep over our bruises, and some of us—some of us get there. He, he, he."

"Flummers, have they raised your salary yet?" some one asked.

"Oh, no, and that's why I am disgusted with the newspaper profession. The country cries out, 'Who is the man?' There is a deep silence. The country cries again, 'Does any one know this man?' And then papa speaks. But what does he get? The razzle. A great scoop rewarded with a razzle. My achievements are taken too much us a matter of course. I don't assert myself enough. I am too modest. Say, I smell liquor. Who's got a bottle? Somebody took a cork out of a bottle. Who was it? Say, Will, have you got a bottle?"

"Thought you said that your doctor told you not to drink."

"He did; he said that I had intercostal rheumatism. He examined me carefully, and when I asked him what he thought, he replied, 'Mr. Flummers, you can't afford to drink.'"

"And did you tell him that you could afford it—that it didn't cost you anything?"

"Oh, ho, ho, no! Say, send out and get a bottle. What are you fellows playing there? Ten cents ante, all jack pots? It's a robbers' game."

* * * * *

In every community a stranger wearing black whiskers was under suspicion. A detective shrewdly suggested that the murderer might have shaved, and he claimed great credit for this timely hint; but no matter, the search for the black-whiskered man was continued. Dave Kittymunks was arrested in all parts of the country, and the head-line writer, whose humor could not long be held in subjection, began to express himself thus: "Dave Kittymunks captured in St. Paul, also seized in New Orleans, and is hotly pursued in the neighborhood of Kansas City."

Witherspoon, sitting by his library fire at night, would say over and over again: "I told him never to keep any money in the house. He was so close, so suspicious; and then to put his money in a safe that a boy might have knocked to pieces!" And it became Mrs. Witherspoon's habit to declare: "I just know that somebody will break into our house next." Then the merchant's impatience would express itself with a grunt. "Oh, it has given you and Ellen a rare chance for speculation. We'd better wall ourselves in a cave and die there waiting for robbers to drill their way in. It does seem to me that they ought to catch that fellow, I told Brooks that he'd better increase the reward to fifty thousand."

Witherspoon and Brooks called at Henry's office. "You may publish the fact that I have offered fifty thousand dollars reward for Kittymunks," said Brooks, speaking to Henry, but looking into the room where Miss Drury was at work.

"That ought to be a great stimulus," Henry replied, "but it doesn't appear to me that there has been any lack of effort."

"No," said Witherspoon; "but the prospect of fifty thousand dollars will make a strong effort stronger."