It was the draft of this bill, now signed and recently become a law, which occupied the attention of Smith during a large part of the ride from New York to Harrisburg. And the more he studied it, the more hopeful became his expression. And it was with the most buoyant of steps that he made his way from Harrisburg station to the office of Mr. Prior. To that distinguished gentleman he sent in a card whereon he added after his name two things: first, "Vice-President Guardian Fire Insurance Co. of New York," and second, by a whimsical but considered afterthought, "I saw you kick that goal from the field against Cornell."
Mr. Prior was thoroughly inured to conversing with corporation executives,—they were no novelty to him,—presumably, therefore, it was the second memorandum which caused Smith to be ushered almost immediately into the presence of the Attorney-General, who regarded his visitor with a good-humored smile on his clean-shaven lips.
"Mr. Smith, I presume?" he inquired.
"Yes, sir," the other answered.
"I gather from this card," Mr. Prior pursued, glancing at it, "that you remember having seen me—elsewhere."
"When I was fifteen years old," Smith replied. "And I've been to a good many games since, but I don't think I ever saw any one else kick a goal from the field at a mean angle on the forty-yard line with a stiff wind quartering against him."
"Perhaps not—at least in the last two minutes of play," the Attorney-General agreed reflectively; and the New Yorker could easily pardon this embellishment.
It was some little time later when Mr. Prior somewhat reluctantly returned to things mundanely legal so far as to ask his caller's business.
Smith explained.
When, on the following afternoon, he walked into President Wintermuth's office, if there was in his manner a certain undertrace of elation, it must be forgiven him, for this, his first stroke in his broad horizon, seemed thus far up to every expectation of success.