The Grafters

operator could not tell; and pending the chalking-up of its arriving time on the bullet

here he was born and bred. Also, he knew how Kent's friends, college friends who knew his gifts and ability, had deprecated the burial; and he himself had been curious enough to pay Kent a visit to spy out the reason why. On their first evening together in the stuffy little law office which had been his father's, Ke

had laid the blame at the door of the university, had given Kent a bad half-year of fault-finding and recrimination,

g had suspected, for the timely intervention of the farmer's son, but holding himself well in hand against a repetition of the s

of the doubt. From tramping the hills alone, or whipping the streams for brook trout, David had taken to spending his afternoons with lover-like regularit

to the wider battle-field. Again, apart from his modest patrimony, Kent had only his profession. The Brentwoods were not rich, as riches are measured in millions; but they lived in their own house in

afield, or for his unhopeful present attitude. Meaning to win trophies to lay at Miss Brentwood's feet, the pr

eart. He had a word of comfort, negative comfort, to offer, but it might not be said until Kent should give him leave by taking the i

ly sorry for you, Grantham-sorry for any one that has to stay in this charnel-h

ch, and made a suggestion, hopin

we go back to your ro

eyes gloom

back among the relics and I should bore you.

contradict you. Nevertheless, you are my host. It is f

seen the street parade and heard the band play: it is o

h-box and made a fres

t-Governor' Bucks are on opposite side

ess of myself than I do-and that's n

me? Well, come along. Politics are not down on my west

in Texas Street and the American-Tudor cottages of the suburbs, it was a creditable relic. The auditorium was well filled in pit, dress-circle and gallery when Kent and his guest edged their way throu

ry draping of flags under the proscenium arch and across the set-piece villa of the background. In the semicircle of chairs arched from wing to wing sat the local and visiting political lights; men of all

me at the party call; men who came in the temporary upblaze of enthusiastic patriotism, which is lighted with the opening of the campaign, and which goes out like a candle in a gust of wind the

y built; with a Vandyke beard clipped closely enough to show the lines of a bull-dog jaw, and eyes that had the gift, priceless to the public speaker, of seeming to hold every onlooki

ked Loring, in

Gaston wolf-pack. A man who would persuade you into believing in the impeccability of Satan i

ner. Hawk's speech was merely introduct

ise in their might to say to tyranny in whatsoever form it oppresses them, 'Thus far and

ches from the soil of this our adoptive State, political trickery in high places

ession and tyranny, the crisis has bred the man. Ladies and gentlemen, I have the pleasure of presenting to you the speaker of the eveni

d lumbered heavily forward to the footlights. Loring's first emotion was of surprise, tempered with pity. The crisis-born leader, heralded by such

es; no eloquence in the harsh, nasal tones of the untrained voice, or in the ponderous and awkward wavings of the beam-like arms. None the less, before he had uttered a dozen haltin

some subtile magnetism in this great hulk of a man that made itself felt in spite of its hamperings? Or was it merely that the people, weary of

k, whose speech flamed easily into denunciation when it touched on the alien corporations, he counseled moderation and lawful reprisals. Land syndicates, railroads, foreign capital in whatever employment, were prim

e in duty bound to do, buys 'em if they can. You can't blame 'em for that; it's business-their business. But it is our business, as citizens of this great commonwealth, to prevent it. We have good laws on our statute books, but we need more of 'em; laws for control, with plain, honest men at the capital, in the judiciary, in every roo

e. The State can be-it ought to be-sovereign within its own boundaries. If we rise up as one man next Tuesday and put a ticket into the ballot-box th

the little gap of silence bar

ay. But supposin'

ace, the awkward gestures, the slipshod English became suddenly transparent, revealing the real man; a man of titanic strength, of tremendous possibilities for good or evil. Loring put up his glass

wall-won't see it, you say? Then, my friend, it will become the manifest duty of the legislature and the executive to make 'em see it: always lawfully, you understand; always

wer, and the Honorable Jasper mopped his face with a colored han

his opponent. It is going to be just plain, honest justice and the will of the people against the money of the Harrimans and the Goulds and the Vanderbilts and all the rest of 'em. But the law is mighty, and

to give 'em an object-lesson-lawfully, always lawfully, you understand. But when they see, through the medium of such an object-lesson or otherwise, as the case may be, that we mean business; when they see that we, the people of this great and growing commonwealth, mean to assert our rights to live and

like fine dust on the throng-heate

said; adding: "I guess you have

y back to the railway station. When he spoke it

he stands there haranguing that crowd. That is a pose, and an exceedingly skilful one. He is not altogether ap

nty on that score," was the curt rejoinder.

attempt to re

party likely t

any lightning transformations in politics

's comment. "It might make som

t reminds me: I haven't given you a ch

Star Chamber matter, but I'm under promise in a way not to talk about it until I have

in, and Loring broke away from the political and personal entanglement

ter-dinner séance in your rooms, David, but I noticed there was

show of mis

e been apparent to you before you had been an

well to the fore. He was the last man in the wo

out of a mole-hill, David. Elinor Brentwood is a true woman in every inch of

ualities as much as we please, but we can't laugh them out of court. As between a young woman who is an heiress in her o

s Brentwo

was unwilling to entangle h

me rights which even a besotted lover is bound to respect. You made love to her that summer at Croydon; you needn't deny it. And at the end of things you walk off to make your

fair measure of h

never had. I'm not such an ass as

to say, I'll dare swear. I've a bit of qualified good news fo

s indifference vanishing

till unmarried, though the gossips say sh

the other half I too

n making a lot of bad investments for herself and her two daughters: in o

oss had been his own, and said as mu

may say that the blame l

How do you ar

Croydon summer, Mrs. Brentwood would have had a bright young attorney for

as entirely de

neither a prophet nor the son of a prophet. Bu

Boston. He gave me to understand that the principal family hol

name of the stock?" asked

rtune-and by consequence, Elinor's and Penelope's-is tied up in the stock of the c

t ill-advisers in general, and Lorin

our property as good a thing as we of the

ave at the Opera House. You can imagine what the stock of the Western Pacific, or of any other foreign corpora

ere talking more particularly of Miss Brentwood, and your personal responsibilities." The belated

to hear-more anxious th

the mother. Mrs. Brentwood's asthma is worse, and the wise men

y coming this w

ng's hand-bag from the check-stand. The guest pau

a slight acquaintance with her as you have; but I'll be hanged if I shouldn't chance it. And in the mean time, if I don't go back E

dusty darkness of the illimitable plain. Then he went to his rooms, to the one which was called by courtesy his office,