A few days later Margrave called on Wheaton at the bank. He was a little proud of having discovered Wheaton. Since his quondam messenger had become a bank cashier he had begun to take notice of him.
"I guess we're going to need you to take a star part in the carnival this year," he said, leading him into the empty directors' room and looking carefully about to make sure that they were alone. "Yon see, we've been casting about to find a good representative from among the younger business men to take the part of king in the carnival. The board of control are unanimous that you're the man."
"But I've just gone into the Knights,—there are plenty of older members."
"That's the point! we want new men and you're just the fellow we're after."
He had been holding his hat in his hand and wiping his brow with his handkerchief, and he now backed toward the door, saying, without leaving Wheaton time for further quibble:
"Keep it mum. You understand about that; we always want to jar the public. We'll put you on to the curves all right."
"I'm sure I'm very much surprised," said Wheaton, "but—"
"Oh, it's all fixed," said Margrave, moving off. "You're the only one and we never let anybody decline. It would knock all the compliment out of it, if we let two or three fellows refuse before we caught one that would accept."
Wheaton went back to his desk, surprised and flattered. Margrave's good will was worth having. Wheaton had never outgrown the impression he formed of Margrave when, as a boy, he had indexed letter books and received callers in the general manager's outer office. He knew that Mr. Porter was more respectable and stood higher in the community, but there was something that took hold of even Wheaton's dull imagination in the bolder achievements of Timothy Margrave, who rolled over the country in a private car, dictating, when need arose, to the legislatures of a chain of states, and looming large in the press's discussions of those combinations and contests of transportation companies which marked the last years of the nineteenth century. Wheaton had acquired a banker's habitual distrust of men who offer favors; but as this came on the personal invitation of one who had no dealings with his bank he could see no harm in accepting.
Margrave winked at him a few days later when they met at the club.