"I've followed things pretty carefully, sir; and with what you have just told me I think I know about where we stand. We're certainly in bad shape at present, from the agency standpoint, but it's by no means hopeless. And financially we seem to be well off. I looked over the statement Mr. Bartels gave me last night, and since the first of the year some of our investments must have appreciated handsomely; I see that Ninth National Bank stock is selling away above the valuation we put on it in our statement."
"Yes; it is thought that some of the Duane Trust Company people are trying to buy a controlling interest," the President responded more cheerfully.
"But of course that is not in my province," Smith continued. "The question with me is what immediate action to take with reference to the agency plant. Now, Boston is gone—there's no hurry there. Buffalo is lost, too. It seems unlikely that New York will get in any deeper trouble this week or next—although of course you can't tell. But Philadelphia and Pittsburgh need attention right away." He glanced at the small clock on Mr. Wintermuth's desk. "If you'll excuse me, sir," he said, "I think I can make the ten o'clock on the Pennsylvania. I brought my suitcase down here, thinking that I might want to start in a hurry."
"Go ahead, my boy. Good luck," said his chief.
And so Smith caught the ten o'clock express from the Pennsylvania station, leaving behind him in the Guardian office an elderly gentleman in whose breast an undefined cheerfulness had awakened. But it was to neither Philadelphia nor Pittsburgh that the Vice-President's ticket read; he had taken a ticket to Harrisburg.
Many years before, the Attorney-General of the state of Pennsylvania had been a famous football player at the state university; whether his gridiron career had any bearing on his legal equipment or not was a question, but it certainly did not make him a worse man. His name was James K. Prior, he stood six feet one, and weighed two hundred pounds.
Mr. Prior was a believer in modern government, although in fighting his way up to the attorney-generalship he had seen enough of the Pennsylvania variety to have given a lesser optimist his doubts. He also believed in modern business conditions, and so far as he properly could, he officially encouraged what he regarded as being legitimate commercial combinations. But he did not believe in trusts. He had followed local legislation long enough to be very sure that there was in it far too much sophistry and too little equity, and he was a strong upholder of what he termed fair play, whether it came peacefully along statutory lines or whether it had to be jerked raw from the shambles of a hundred confused and specious lawyer-made laws.
All in all, he made an active and satisfactory attorney-general.
Now it chanced that during the last session of an unusually prolific legislature a political opponent of Mr. Prior's had contrived to secure the passage of a bill designed to give a certain latitude to certain rather questionable combinations of capital, known in the vernacular as trusts. Senator McGaw, Mr. Prior's antagonist, had managed this bit of special legislation very craftily indeed. The bill was so innocently worded as to disarm the most vigilant and radical trust-buster; it appeared as though its purpose was exactly the reverse of that for which it had been subtly designed; in fact, in an excessive effort to avert suspicion a couple of clauses had found their way into this document which gave Mr. Prior some of the keenest pleasure of his career.
"You are perfectly safe in signing that bill, Governor," he had said to the State's chief executive, who had asked his advice in the matter. "I'll bet my professional reputation that the courts will hold that it gives us more than it takes away. McGaw's people think it ties the State's hands from proceeding against concerns which operate in restraint of trade by restricting their distributing centers. Instead of which we'll have them on the hip—that section four went a little too far. Just let one of them try to keep his product exclusively in the hands of his sole distributers, and I give you my word I'll have the responsible officer of that concern in jail! Go ahead and sign the bill, Governor—it's all right with me."