The Grafters

ght have spared the horse and saved the double fee. On the broad steps of the south portico he, uprushing

the first member of the corporations' lobby he

Somebody engineered it to the paring of a fingernail: bare quorum to act; members who might have filibustered weeded out, on one pretext or another, to a m

ined the townward dispe

tely; at least, until we can test its c

die until they were quite dead. As assistant counsel for the Overland Short Line, he w

nt on; "and now I think of it, you are the man to say how much o

hook h

e and Meigs and Hendricks drafted it. And all this f

new law in their business as a source of revenue? Or do they want to be hired to kill it? In

ou mean to say you would bu

long. He was of the square-set, plain-spoken, aggressive type

sing the question of ethics at this

red up

am?" he

tion of business-or rather of self-preservation. We needn't mi

shr

rchasability. But I confess I don't

o have riper experience-and fewer hamperings, perhaps-than you have. Your shar

it lives it is given to drawing sharp lines on all the boundaries of culpability. Kent ended by taking

reed-which is abnormal. And, besides, he has his pose to defend. If he can see his way clear to a harvest of extortion

s laugh wa

be able to make them grasp that idea before we are through with them. We have

If you add another

ey. I take it for granted the Weste

, and Kent made his first open protest

ston people. We are not more saintly than other folk, perhaps; and we are not in the railroad business for health o

ll reap the benefits with other inters

now on the ground of the

etent to decide. Loring is your man. You will

erybody as soon as the trap was sprung in the House. We

. I have some telephoning to do be

ther on to the Wellington. Ormsby had not yet returned, and Kent went to the t

on as he had given his name. "What did I do

'm sure. I-I was lookin

ntly. "You were handing Miss Portia an ic

that. Is he

t twenty minutes ago.

nd him as soon as I can. Did he say h

lope. And then: "Whatever is the mat

can't talk about over the wires. It concerns you and your mother and sister.

!" was long-dr

e dead?" s

ind. I'll send Ormsby out, and

ou come

n't let your mother go to bed until you have hea

d like to know more

t, and it was some minutes before the connection was switched in again. "Is that you, Miss Penelope? All right; I wasn't quite throu

goodness' sake, find Mr. Ormsby and ma

I'm awfully s

r the missing man, Ormsby came in to answer for himself. Whereupon the crisis was outl

but it will be quite like her to balk. Don't you think you'd better go along?

omatist, having got the idea well into the

e you are squaring things with the young women. Penelope won't care the snap of her finger either way; but Elinor has some notion's that you are fit

ed. It was Penelope who opened the door for them at 124 Tejon Ave

few minutes," he began. "Will you arrange it,

, whereupon David Kent found himself the rather embarrassed third o

asked Penelope, sweetly, when th

ure joy at the bre

in. "It's about your Western Pacific stock, you know. To-day's quotations put it a point and a half above your

a yawn. "Then I'm not in it: I'm an inf

happened?" queried Elinor, speaking for t

Bill Twenty-nine for her, po

e of dividends. Skipping the dry details, the new law, which is equitable enough on its face, can be made an engine of extortion

sm

re in the opposition. Are

coolness. "Decadent Rome never lifted a baser set of demagogues

him best when he put her on the

," she objected. "As a people we a

nd directed by a small minority of shrewd rascals. That is exactly what has happened in the passage of this bil

true leadership and a love of pure justice in their hearts!" she s

his and there was a passing sh

inking aloud. But it is one of my dreams.

urify

e all admit that. And there is intelligence, too. But human nature is the same as it used to

leadership, such as

put self-seeking and unworthy ambition aside and lift the standard of ju

It is a frantic scramble for place and power for the most part. The kind

adicted h

nd try to make things better; he would put the selfish temptations under foot and give th

k his hea

e stronger than the abstract

said; meaning, rather, tha

would have to have an object more personal to him than the me

ld be self-se

ts way, and it gave an uplift to an age which would have been frankly brutal without it: y

sentimentalists?

a man with somewhat of the old knightly spirit in him. And I'll go further and say that when you do find

me the low sweet harmonies of the noctu

g in figures, as a man and a woman will; yet he made sure the mask of metaphor was transparent, no less to her than to him. As many times before, his heart was crying ou

s awakening. Something of himself she had shown him in the former time: how he was rusting inactive in the small field when he should be doing a man's work, the work for which his tr

upon her

reproach me?" h

abs

certain sense. You sent me out into the world, a

out for to see?'"

were arousing a worthy ambition, but it was only avarice t

something va

raid not; it

o hew his way to the end of the line if only the motive were strong enough to call out all the reserves of battle-might and courage. That motive she alone, of all the women in the world, might have supplied, he

resent crisis," he said, breaking the sile

grave with a little gesture of apathetic i

" she confessed. "Mother will do as she thinks bes

of the persuasive responsibility, and the talk drifted in

ght that however bitter his own disappointment was, Elinor at least was happy. But in this new-old field of talk a change came

the summer girl? I recollect your saying once that it was wicked; a desecration of things which ought to be held sacred. It

er if she had asserted that black was white. It was not weakness; it was merely tha

re charitable and less sentimental, perhaps. And yet we prided

ord at last: it was resentment; though, being a man, he could see no goo

aid: "No; sincerity is always just. A

?" he d

; to yo

n never be quite all she ought to be to him; for his sake she could never be quite the same to you. A cold wave of apprehen

n there came the sound of a door opening and

f bed any longer," he announced briefly; and the

query when they were free of the hou

worth more than it was when we bought it!'" he quoted, mimicking the thin-lipped, acidulous protest. "Later, in an evil minute, I tried to drag you in, and she let yo

ugh was m

books," he said, by way of a

ason why, he was magnanimous eno

"I don't fancy you had an

t it either way. She said her mot

n't know is, what

rowd and the corporations, I mean-but there will probably be ups and downs enough to scare

t altogether a matter of life and death to me, don't you know? If it comes to the worst, I can have my broker play the part of the god in the ca

ort and wheeled sudde

n afraid of, all along; and it's

nded the straig

nnest of ice, but his love for Elin

ht to entrap Miss Brentwood into an obligation that would make her your debtor for the very food she eats and the clothes she

nk enough-to draw it mildly. Another man in my place

bout and caug

now, and we won't go back to the elemental things so late in the day. All the same, yo

y ways and means preservative of the Brentwood fortunes. But at the archway of the Camel

quarrel if we can help it," he said. "If you complain that I didn't giv

Kent; and with th