The Grafters

nearing its close; and the alarmists who had prophesied evil and evil only of the "Populist"

settled down to routine business, despatching it with such unheard-of celerity as to win columns of approval from the State press as a whol

corporation owning property and doing business in the State had its quota of watchful defenders on the ground; men who came and went, in the lobbies of the capitol, in the visito

to have a thing to do which kept him from dwelling overmuch upon the wreck of his hopes. But in the closing days of the session, when

ir accessibility, and his unconquerable desire to sear his wound in the flame that had caused it, were constant temptations, and he was battling with them for the

shawe, his right-hand neighbor, who was also a member of the corps of obs

ith the bored one. But in the g

he said in extenuation. "I think I'll smoke a whiff or two h

paper, two other members of the corporation committee of safety came down from the

, pure and simple," one of them was saying. "I've a mind to start

House Bill Twenty-nine, I'd go to-night.

ng rejoinder. "The committee is ours, and the bill will not be hear

corporations' lobby had felt called on to take steps. It was an omnibus bill put forth as a substitute for the existing law defining the status of foreign corporations. It had originated in the governor's off

ate supervision, and were dealt with as presumably unfriendly aliens. But the Senate amendment to House Bill Twenty-nine fairly swept the interstate corporations, as such, out of existence, by making it obligatory upon them to acquire the standing of local corporations. Charters

ued that a bill placing the foreign companies on a purely local footing was an unmixed blessing to the aliens. But on the other hand, an unprincipled executive might easily make the new law an engine of extortion. To go no further into the matter than

watched the course of the amended House Bill Twenty-nine with interest sharp-set, planning meanwhile with Hildreth, the editor of the Daily Argus, an exposé

tting itself cast in the linotypes, there was a hitch. The member from the Rio Blanco, favoring the measure in all its parts, and fearful only lest corporation gold might find a

; would never report, Kent imagined. He knew the personnel of the committee on judiciary; knew that at least three members of it were down on the list, made up at the beginning of the session by his colleagues in the army

let fall by the two outgoing lobbyists. "And so much of this dog-watch as isn't sickeningly demoralizi

ck quotations; a daily duty which, for Elinor's sake, he had never omitted. Whereupon he reopened it and ran his eye down

Western Pacific, preferred, was quoted at fifty-eight and a half,

telephone, gritting his teeth at the inanity of the central operator who

ant twelve-thirty-four; one, two,

nother nerve-trying wait, and at la

sby? No, he isn't here; he went out about two minutes ago. What's that you say

the street-car corner. At a quarter of nine he was cross-questioning the clerk face to face in the lobby of the Wellington. There was little

chase a man in evening dress. There was no car in sight when he came down, and he, too, to

rtment. She was a Swede, a recent importation; hence Kent learned nothing be

k it vill pee

his charges. Among them there was the legislative reception at Portia Van Brock's. Kent flipped a figurative

exile's residence at the capital. Thereafter she had taken Kent up on his own account, and by now he was deep in her debt. For one thing, she had set the fashion in the matter of legislative receptions-her detractors, knowing nothing whatever about it, hinted that she had been an amateur s

s through the crowded reception-parlors in the search for the Brentwood party. It was unsuccessful at first; but later, catching a glimpse of Elinor at the piano, and another of Penelope ind

old him where to look for the club-

of welcome. "Some one said you were not going to be frivolous any more, and

eft of it. A good third of the Solons seem to

stuck in his mind. In an unhappy hour he asked Colonel Mack's boy-Harry, the irrepressible, you know-to look it up for him. Harry did it, and of course took the most public occasion he could find to hand in hi

as in duty bound, but he st

er daughters here: can you tell me w

There is a vacant corner in that davenport beyond the piano:

had told him Miss Van Brock's story. She was southern born, the only child of a somewhat ill-considered match between a young California lawyer, wire-pul

in an era of frank commercialism. Inheriting her mother's rare beauty of face and form, and uniting with it a sympathetic gift in grasp of detail, political and other, she soon became her father's c

uture should be, not even Loring could guess. Since her father's death Miss Van Brock had been a citizen of the world. With a widowed aunt for the shadowiest of chaperons, she had drifted with the tide of inclin

uld find a round dozen within easy eye-reach, to say nothing of the calm-eyed, queenly improvisatrice at the piano-his constant standard of all womanly ch

t way, Mr. David. She is not for yo

ed down

fancy you have kept many a man w

e tang of bittern

n, and her effort to dispose of her 'M'randy' was a standing joke in the family. In answer to my stereotyped question she stood back and folded her arms.

le fable," said Ken

your turn you make use of me-or you think you do.

to-night is purely charitable. Which brings me back to Or

five or six other tobacco misant

ear; after which I shall vanis

dfastly at the impassioned fac

s Brentwood?" sh

-yes," he

ing figure of a woman who knew her part

u mustn't, you know; it's too late. You've marred her, between you; or rather that convention, which makes a woman deaf, blind and dumb until a man has fairl

rt from her

on't fully understand wha

remely uncomplimentary about your lack o

ly wrong impression. What I have to say to Mr. Brookes Ormsby does not remot

er thing. But if it is only a business secret you may as well tell me al

fficulty in inducing Mrs. Brentwood to sell her Western Pacific stock even at an advance; might require time, at

rst," he pleaded. "Afterward, i

with the polite requirements, as a man must; shaking hands or exchanging a word with one and another of the obstructor

m of the suite he found Portia chatting with Marston, the lieutenant-governor; and a you

o the tall, saturnine man who had shared the honors at t

ent. "Have y

s after you left me. I thought of telling Mr. Ormsby you

hat have you done?

something to tell you-something of importance; but I can't remember what

Portia's confidences exceedingly helpful in a bus

member it unless you can remind me by telling me why

laughed. "But I don't mind telling you. Western Pa

er and laid a hand on his arm. "I'd sell-by wire-to-night; at least, I'd make sure that

d for the same reason. But have I succeeded in rem

his matter of Mr. Ormsby's concerned

is hers, and her mother's and sister's. I want Ormsby to persuad

the quotation in the evening paper; and I know, better, perhaps, than you do, the need for haste. Must you

paid me yet,"

e it now. Wasn't some one telling me that y

ighted front vestibule, and

he admitted, correcting th

udiciary you left it to more skilful, or perha

witch. Is there any

our good friends of the 'vested interests' to have that bill mislaid i

in, which, to say the best of it, was only

things have a way of turning

a sudden gust of f

ord, Miss Van Brock. Don't thos

led pit

members of the committee on judiciary, had a little plan of their own; a plan suggested by the read

ing it with

d one fiercely honest young corporation attorney in particular, have time to forget that there was such a thing as House Bill Twenty-nine. And in such a suppositional cas

smile was alm

the beginning: they have yet to reckon wi

and spoke to the f

emember now what it was that I wanted to tell you. While you have been trying to find Mr. Ormsby, the committee on judiciary has been reporting the long-lost House Bill Twenty-nine. If you hurr

from the furnace of righteous indignation. For a moment he fully believed she was in league with

in his eyes and turned it

had been anything you could do-the smallest shadow of a chance for you-I should hav

the waiting Thomas and was running l