THE COLOSSUS

A NOVEL

BY

OPIE READ

Author of "The Carpetbagger," "Old Ebenezer," "The Jucklins," "My Young Master," "On The Suwanee River," "A Kentucky Colonel," "Emmett Bonlore," "A Tennessee Judge," "The Wives of the Prophet," "Len Gansett," "The Tear in the Cup and Other Stories".

CHICAGO
LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS
1893.

CONTENTS.

[CHAPTER I.] LOOKING BACK AT EARLY LIFE
[CHAPTER II.] A SLEEPY VILLAGE AND A FUSSY OLD MAN
[CHAPTER III.] ALL WAS DARKNESS
[CHAPTER IV.] A STRANGE REQUEST
[CHAPTER V.] DISSECTING A MOTIVE
[CHAPTER VI.] WAITING AT THE STATION
[CHAPTER VII.] A MOTHER'S AFFECTION
[CHAPTER VIII.] THE DOMAIN OF A GREAT MERCHANT
[CHAPTER IX.] THE INTERVIEWERS
[CHAPTER X.] ROMPED WITH THE GIRL
[CHAPTER XI.] ACKNOWLEDGED BY SOCIETY
[CHAPTER XII.] A DEMOCRACY
[CHAPTER XIII.] BUTTING AGAINST A WALL
[CHAPTER XIV.] A DIFFERENT HANDWRITING
[CHAPTER XV.] TOLD HIM HER STORY
[CHAPTER XVI.] AN AROUSER OF THE SLEEPY
[CHAPTER XVII.] AN OLD MAN WOULD INVEST
[CHAPTER XVIII.] THE INVESTMENT
[CHAPTER XIX.] ARRESTED EVERYWHERE
[CHAPTER XX.] CRIED A SENSATION
[CHAPTER XXI.] A HELPLESS OLD WOMAN
[CHAPTER XXII.] TO GO ON A VISIT
[CHAPTER XXIII.] HENRY'S INCONSISTENCY
[CHAPTER XXIV.] WORE A ROSE ON HIS COAT
[CHAPTER XXV.] IMPATIENTLY WAITING
[CHAPTER XXVI.] TOLD IT ALL
[CHAPTER XXVII.] POINTS OUT HER BROTHER'S DUTY
[CHAPTER XXVIII.] THE VERDICT
[CHAPTER XXIX.] A DAY OF REST
[CHAPTER XXX.] A MOTHER'S REQUEST
[CHAPTER XXXI.] A MOMENT OF ARROGANCE
[CHAPTER XXXII.] A MOST PECULIAR FELLOW
[CHAPTER XXXIII.] THE TIME WAS DRAWING NEAR
[CHAPTER XXXIV.] TOLD HIM A STORY
[CHAPTER XXXV.] CONCLUSION

CHAPTER I.

LOOKING BACK AT EARLY LIFE.

When the slow years of youth were gone and the hastening time of manhood had come, the first thing that Henry DeGolyer, looking back, could call from a mysterious darkness into the dawn of memory was that he awoke one night in the cold arms of his dead mother. That was in New Orleans. The boy's father had aspired to put the face of man upon lasting canvas, but appetite invited whisky to mix with his art, and so upon dead walls he painted the trade-mark bull, and in front of museums he exaggerated the distortion of the human freak.

After the death of his mother, the boy was taken to the Foundlings' Home, where he was scolded by women and occasionally knocked down by a vagabond older than himself. Here he remembered to have seen his father but once. It was a Sunday when he came, years after the gentle creature, holding her child in her arms, had died at midnight. The painter laughed and cried and begged an old woman for a drink of brandy. He went away, and after an age had seemed to pass the matron of the place took the boy on her lap and told him that his father was dead, and then, putting him down, she added: "Run along, now, and be good."

The boy was taken by an old Italian woman. In after years he could not determine the length of time that he had lived in her wretched home, but with vivid brightness dwelled in his memory the morning when he ran away and found a free if not an easy life in the newsboys' lodging-house. He sold newspapers, he went to a night school, and as he grew older he picked up "river items" for an afternoon newspaper. His hope was that he might become a "professional journalist," as certain young men termed themselves; and study, which in an ill-lighted room, tuned to drowsiness by the buzzing of youthful mumblers, might have been a chafing task to one who felt not the rowel of a spurring ambition, was to him a pleasure full of thrilling promises. To him the reporter stood at the high-water mark of ambition's "freshet." But when years had passed and he had scrambled to that place he looked down and saw that his height was not a dizzy one. And instead of viewing a conquered province, he saw, falling from above, the shadows of trials yet to be endured. He worked faithfully, and at one time held the place of city editor, but a change in the management of the paper not only reduced him to the ranks, but, as the saying went, set him on the sidewalk. Then he wrote "specials." His work was bright, original and strong, and was reproduced throughout the country, but as it was not signed, the paper alone received the credit. Year after year he lived in this unsettled way—reading in the public library, musing at his own fireside, catching glimpses of an important work which the future seemed to hold, and waiting for the outlines of that work to become more distinct; but the months went by and the plan of the work remained in the shadow of the coming years.

DeGolyer had now reached that time of life when a wise man begins strongly to suspect that the past is but a future stripped of its delusions. He was a man of more than ordinary appearance; indeed, people who knew him, and who believed that size grants the same advantages to all vocations, wondered why he was not more successful. He was tall and strong, and in his bearing there was an ease which, to one who recognizes not a sleeping nerve force, would have suggested the idea of laziness. His complexion was rather dark, his eyes were black, and his hair was a dark brown. He was not handsome, but his sad face was impressive, and his smile, a mere melancholy recognition that something had been said, did not soon fade from memory.

One afternoon DeGolyer called at the office of a morning newspaper, and was told that the managing editor wanted to see him. When he was shown in he found an aspiring politician laughing with forced heartiness at something which the editor had said. To the Southern politician the humor of an influential editor is full of a delirious mellowness.

When the politician went out the editor invited DeGolyer to take a seat. "Mr. DeGolyer, a number of your sketches have been well received."

"Yes, sir; they have made me a few encouraging enemies."

The editor smiled. "And you regard enemies as an encouragement, eh?"

"Yes, as a proof of success. Our friends mark out a course for us, and if we depart from it and do something better than their specifications call for, they become our enemies."

"I don't know but you are right." After a short silence the editor continued: "Mr. DeGolyer, we have been thinking of sending a man down into Costa Rica. Our merchants believe that if we were to pay more attention to that country we might thereby improve our trade. What we want is a number of letters intended to familiarize us with those people—want to show, you understand, that we are interested in them."

They talked during an hour. The nest day DeGolyer was on board a steamer bound for Punta Arenas. On the vessel he met a young man who said that his name was Henry Sawyer; and this young man was so blithe and light-hearted that DeGolyer, yielding to the persuasion of contrast, was drawn toward him. Young Sawyer was accompanied by his uncle, a short, fat, and at times a crusty old fellow. DeGolyer did not think that the uncle was wholly sound of mind. One evening, just before reaching port, and while the two young men were standing on deck, looking landward, young Sawyer said:

"Do you know, I think more of you than of any fellow I ever met?"

"I don't know it," DeGolyer answered, "but I am tempted to hope so."

"Good. I do, and that's a fact. You see, I've led a most peculiar sort of life. I never had any home—that is, any real home. I don't remember a thing about my father and mother. They died when I was very young, and then my uncle took me. Uncle never married and never was particularly attached to any one place. We have traveled a good deal; have lived quite a while in New Orleans, but for the past two years we have lived in a little bit of a place called Ulmata, in central Costa Rica. Uncle's got an interest in some mines not far from there. Say, why wouldn't it be a good idea for you to go to Ulmata and write your letters from there? Ain't any railroad, but there's a mule line running to the coast. How does it strike you?"

"I'd like to, but I'm afraid that it would take my letters too long to reach New Orleans; still, I don't know what difference that would make, as I'm not going to write news. After all," he added, as though he were arguing with himself, "I should think that the interior is more interesting than the coast, for people don't hang their characteristics over the coast line."

"There, you've hit the nail the very first lick. You go out there with us, and I'll bet we have a magnificent time."

"But your uncle might object."

"How can he? It ain't any of his business where you go."

"Of course not."

"Well, then, that settles it. But really, he'd like to have you. You'll like him; little peculiar at times, but you'll find him all right. You'll get a good deal of money for those letters, won't you?"

"No; a hired mail on a newspaper doesn't get much money."

"But it must take a good deal of brains to do your work."

"Presumably, but there stands a long row of brains ready to take the engagement—to take it, in fact, at a cut rate. The market is full of brains."

"How old did you say you were?"

"I am nearly thirty," DeGolyer answered.

"I'm only twenty-five, but that don't make any difference; we'll have a splendid time all the same. You read a good deal, I notice. Uncle's got a whole raft of books, and you can read to me when you get tired of reading to yourself. I've gone to school a good deal, but I'm not much of a hand with a book; but I tell you what I believe—I believe I could run a business to the queen's taste if I had a chance, and I'm going to try it one of these days. Uncle tells me that after awhile I may be worth some money, and if I am I'll get rich as sure as you're born. Business was born in me, but I've never had a chance to do anything, I have traded around a little, and I've made some money, too, but the trouble is that I've never been settled down long enough to do much of anything, I've scarcely any chance at all out at Ulmata. What would you rather be than anything else?"

"I don't know. It doesn't seem that nature has exerted herself in fitting me for anything, and I am a strong believer in natural fitness. We may learn to do a thing in an average sort of way, but excellence requires instinct, and instinct, of course, can't be learned."

"I guess that's so. I can see hundreds of ways to make money. I'd rather be a big merchant than anything else. Old fellow," he suddenly broke off, "I am as happy as can be to have you go out yonder with us; and mark what I tell you—we're going to have a splendid time."

CHAPTER II.

A SLEEPY VILLAGE AND A FUSSY OLD MAN.

In the village of Ulmata there was just enough of life to picture the dreamy indolence of man. Rest was its complexion, and freedom from all marks of care its most pleasing aspect.

Old Sawyer was so demonstrably gratified to have a companion for his nephew that he invited DeGolyer to take a room in his house, and DeGolyer gratefully accepted this kindness. Young Sawyer was delighted when the household had thus been arranged, and with many small confidences and unstudied graces of boyish friendship, he kept his guest in the refreshing atmosphere of welcome. And in the main the uncle was agreeable and courteous, but there were times when he flew out of his orbit of goodfellowship.

Once he came puffing into the room where DeGolyer was writing, and blusteringly flounced upon a sofa. He remained quiet for a few moments, and then he blew so strong a spout of annoyance that DeGolyer turned to him and asked:

"Has anything gone wrong?"

The old fellow's eyes bulged out as if he were straining under a heavy load. "Yes," he puffed, "the devil's gone wrong."

"But isn't that of ancient date?" DeGolyer asked.

"Here, now, young fellow, don't try to saw me!" And then he broke off with this execration: "Oh, this miserable world—this infernal pot where men are boiled!" He rolled his eyes like a choking ox, and after a short silence, asked: "Young fellow, do you know what I'd do if I were of your age?"

"If you were of my temperament as well as of my age I don't think you'd do much of anything."

"Yes, I would; I would confer a degree of high favor on myself. I would cut my throat, sir."

"Pardon me, but is it too late at your time of life?"

"Yes, for my nerve is diseased and I am a coward, an infamous, doddering old coward, sir. Good God! to live for years in darkness, bumping against the sharp corners of conscience. I have never told Henry, but I don't mind telling you that at times I am almost mad. For years I have sought to read myself out of it, but to an unsettled mind a book is a sly poison—the greatest of books are but the records of trouble. Don't you say a word to Henry. He thinks that my mind is as sound as a new acorn, but it isn't."

"I won't—but, by the way, he is young; why don't you advise him to kill himself?"

The old fellow flounced off the sofa and stood bulging his eyes at DeGolyer.

"Don't you ever say such a thing as that again!" he snorted. "Why, confound your hide! would you have that boy dead?"

DeGolyer threw down his pen. "No, I would have him live forever in his thoughtless and beautiful paradise; I would not pull him down to the thoughtful man's hell of self-communion."

"Look here, young man, you must have a history."

"No, simply an ill-written essay."

"Who was your father?"

"A fool."

"Ah, I grant you. And who was your mother?"

"An angel."

"No, sir, she—I beg your pardon," the old man quickly added. "You are sensitive, sir."

DeGolyer, sadly smiling, replied: "He who suffered in childhood, and who in after life has walked hand in hand with disappointment, and is then not sensitive, is a brute."

"How well do I know the truth of that! DeGolyer, I have been acquainted with you but a short time, but you appeal to me strongly, sir. And I could almost tell you something, but it is something that I ought to keep to myself. I could make you despise me and then offer me your regard as a compromise. Oh, that American republic of ours, fought for by men who scorned the romance of kingly courts, is not so commonplace a country after all. Many strange things happen there, and some of them are desperately foul. Is that Henry coming? Hush."

The young man bounded into the room. "Say," he cried, "I've bargained for six of the biggest monkeys you ever saw. That old fellow "—

"Henry," the uncle interrupted, taking up a hat and fanning his purplish face, "you are getting too old for that sort of foolishness. You are a man, you must remember, and it may not be long until you'll be called upon to exercise the judgment of a man."

"Oh, I was going to buy the monkeys and sell them again for three times as much as I gave for them, but you bet that when I'm called on to exercise the judgment, of a man I'll be there. And do you think that I'd fool with mines or anything else in this country? I wouldn't. I'd go to some American city and make money. Say, DeGolyer, when are you going to start off on that jaunt?"

"What jaunt?" the old man asked.

"I am going to make a tour of the country," DeGolyer answered. "I'm going to visit nearly every community of interest and gather material for my letters, and shall be gone a month or so, I should think."

"And I'm going with him," said Henry.

"No," the old man replied, "you are not going to leave me here all that time alone. I'm old, and I want you near me."

"All right, uncle; whatever you say goes."

When DeGolyer mounted a mule and set out on his journey, young Sawyer, as if clinging to his friendship, walked beside him for some distance into the country.

"Well, I'd better turn back here," said the young man, halting. "Say, Hank, don't stay away any longer than you can help. It's devilish lonesome here, you know."

"I won't, my boy."

"All right. And say, if you can't do the thing up as well as you want to, throw up the job and come back here, for I'll turn loose, the first thing you know, and make enough money for both of us."

"God bless you, I hope that you may always make enough for yourself."

"And you bet I will, and for you, too. I hate like the mischief to see you go away. Couldn't think any more of you if we were twin brothers. And you think a good deal of me, too, don't you, Hank?"

"My boy," said DeGolyer, leaning over and placing his hand on the young fellow's shoulder, "I have never speculated with my friendship, and I don't know how valuable it is, but all of it that is worth having is yours. You make friends everywhere; I don't. You have nothing to conceal, and I have nothing to make known. To tell you the truth, you are the only real friend I ever had."

"Look out, now. That sort of talk knocks me; but say, don't be away any longer than you can help."

"I won't!" He rode a short distance, turned in his saddle, waved his hand and cried: "God bless you, my boy."

CHAPTER III.

ALL WAS DARKNESS.

Delays and difficulties of traveling, together with his own determination to do the work thoroughly, prolonged DeGolyer's absence. Nearly three months had passed. Evening was come, and from a distant hill-top the returning traveler saw the steeple of Ulmata's church—a black mark on the fading blush of lingering twilight. A chilly darkness crept out of the valley. Hungry dogs barked in the dreary village. DeGolyer could see but a single light. It burned in the priest's house—a dark age, and as of yore, with all the light held by the church. The weary man liberated his mule on a common, where its former companions were grazing, and sought the house of his friends. The house was dark and the doors were fastened. He knocked, and a startling echo, an audible darkness, came from the valley. He knocked again, and a voice cried from the street:

"Who's that?"

"Helloa, is that you, my boy?"

There was no answer, but a figure rushed through the darkness, seized DeGolyer, and in a hoarse whisper said:

"Come where there's a light."

"Why, what's the matter, Henry?"

"Come where there's a light."

DeGolyer followed him to a wretched place that bore the name of a public-house, and went with him into a room. A lamp sputtered on a shelf. Young Sawyer caught DeGolyer's hands.

"I have waited so long for you to come back to this dreadful place. I am all alone. Uncle is dead."

DeGolyer sat down without saying a word. He sat in silence, and then he asked:

"When did he die?"

"About two weeks after you left."

"Did he kill himself?"

"Good God, no! Why did you think that?"

"Oh, I didn't really think it—don't know why I said it."

"He was sick only a few days, and the strangest thing has come to light! He seemed to know before he was taken sick that he was going to die, and he spent nearly a whole day in writing—writing something for me—and the strangest thing has come to light. I can hardly realize it. Here it is; read it. Don't say a word till you have read every line of it. Strangest thing I ever heard of."

And this is what DeGolyer read by the light of the sputtering lamp:

"Years ago there lived in Salem, Mass., two brothers, George and Andrew Witherspoon. Their parents had passed away when the boys were quite young, but the youngsters had managed to get a fair start in life. Without ado let me say that I am Andrew Witherspoon. My brother and I were of different temperaments. He had graces of mind, but was essentially a business man. I prided myself that I was born to be a thinker. I worshiped Emerson. I know now that a man who would willingly become a thinker is a fool. When I was twenty-three—and George nearly twenty-one—I fell in love with Caroline Springer. There was just enough of poetry in my nature to throw me into a devotion that was almost wild in its intensity, and after my first meeting with her I knew no peace. The chill of fear and the fever of confidence came alternating day by day, and months passed ere I had the strength of nerve to declare myself; but at last the opportunity and the courage came together. I was accepted. She said that if I had great love her love might be measured by my own, and that if I did not think that I could love her always she would go away and end her days in grief. The wedding day was appointed. But when I went to claim my bride she was gone—gone with my brother George. To-day, an old man, I look back upon that time and see myself raving on the very brink of madness. I had known that George was acquainted with Caroline Springer—indeed, I had proudly introduced him to her. I will tell my story, though, and not discourse. But it is hard for an old man to be straightforward. If he has read much he is discursive, and if he has not read he is tedious with many words. I didn't leave Salem at once. I met George, and he did not even attempt to apologize for the wrong he had done me. He repeated the fool saying that all is fair in love. 'You ought to be glad that you discovered her lack of love in time,' he said. This was consolation, surely. My mind may never have been well-balanced, and I think that at this time it tilted over to one side, never to tilt back. And now my love, trampled in the mire, arose in the form of an evil determination. I would do my brother and his wife an injury that could not be repaired. I did not wish them dead; I wanted them to live and be miserable. A year passed, and a boy was born. I left my native town and went west. I lived there nearly three years, and then I sent to a Kansas newspaper an account of my death. It was printed, and I sent my brother a marked copy of the paper. Two weeks later I was in Salem. I wore a beard, kept myself close, and no one recognized me. I waited for an opportunity. It came, and I stole my brother's boy. I went to Boston, to Europe, back to America; lived here and there, and you know the rest. My dear boy, I repented somewhat, and it was my intention, at some time, to restore you to your parents, but you yourself were their enemy; you crept into my heart and I could not pluck you out. For a time the story of your mysterious disappearance filled the newspapers. You were found in a hundred towns, year after year, and when your sensation had run its course, you became the joke of the paragraphers. It was no longer, 'Who struck Billy Patterson?" but 'Who stole Henry Witherspoon?' Once I saw your father in New Orleans. He had come to identify his boy; but he went away with another consignment added to his large stock of disappointment. Finally all hope was apparently abandoned and even the newspapers ceased to find you.

"Your father and mother now live in Chicago. George Witherspoon is one of the great merchants of that city, and is more than a millionaire. This is why I have so often told you that one day you would be worth money. You were young and could afford to wait; I was old, and to me the present was everything, and you were the present.

"For some time I have been threatened with sudden death; I have felt it at night when you were asleep; and now I have written a confession which for years I irresolutely put aside from day to day. I charge you to bury me as Andrew Witherspoon, for in the grave I hope to be myself, with nothing to hide. Write at once to your father, and after settling up my affairs, which I urge you not to neglect, you can go to him. In the commercial world a high place awaits you, and though I have done you a great wrong, I hope that your recollection of my deep love for you may soften your resentment and attune your young heart to the sweet melody of forgiveness.

"ANDREW WITHERSPOON."

DeGolyer folded the paper, returned it to Henry and sat in silence. He looked at the smoking lamp and listened to the barking of the hungry dogs.

"What do you think, Hank?"

"I don't know what to think."

"But ain't it the strangest thing you ever heard of?"

"Yes, it is strange, and yet not so strange to me. It is simply the sequel to a well-known story. In the streets of New Orleans, years ago, when I could scarcely carry a bundle of newspapers, I cried your name. The story was getting old then, for I remember that the people paid but little attention to it."

They sat for a time in silence. Young Witherspoon spoke, but DeGolyer did not answer him. They heard a guitar and a Spanish love song.

"Yes, it is strange," said DeGolyer, coming hack from a wandering reverie. "It is strange that I should be here with you;" and under a quickening of his newspaper instincts, he added, "and I shall have the writing of it."

"But wait awhile before you let your mind ran on on that, Hank. I don't want to be described and talked about so much. I know it can't be kept out of the papers, but we'll discuss that after a while. Now, let me tell you what I've done. I wrote to—to—father—don't that sound strange? I wrote to him and sent him a copy of uncle's paper—I would have sent the original, but I wanted to show that to you. I also sent a note that mother—there it is again—wrote to uncle a long time ago, and a lock of hair and some other little tricks. I told him to write to me, and here's his letter. It came nearly four weeks ago. And think, Hank, I've got a sister—grown and handsome, too, I'll bet."

Ecstasy had almost made the letter incoherent. It was written first by one and then another hand, with frequent interchanges; and DeGolyer; who fancied that he could pick character oat of the marks of a pen, thought that a mother's heart had overflowed and that a hard, commercial hand had cramped itself to a strange employment—the expression of affection. The father deplored the fact that his son could not be reached by telegraph, and still more did he lament his inability, on account of urgent business demands, to come himself instead of sending a letter. "Admit of no delay, but set out for home at once," the father commanded. "Telegraph as soon as you can, and your mother and I will meet you in New Orleans. I hope that this may not be exploited in the newspapers. God knows that in our time we have had enough of newspaper notoriety. Say nothing to any one, but come at once, and we can give for publication such a statement as we think necessary. Of course your discovery, as a sequel to your abduction years ago and the tremendous interest aroused at the time, will be of national importance, but I prefer that the news be sent out from this place."

Here the handwriting was changed, and "love," "thank God," "darling child," and emotion blots filled out the remainder of the page.

"You see," said Witherspoon, "that I have a reason for depriving you of an early whack at this thing. Now, I have written again and told them not to be impatient, and that I would leave here as soon as possible. I have settled up everything here, but I've got to go to a little place away over on the coast and close out some mining interests there."

"It must be of but trifling importance, my boy, and I should think that you'd let it go."

"No, sir; I'm going to do my duty by that dear old man if I never do anything else while I live."

He held not a mote of resentment. Indeed was his young heart "attuned to the sweet melody of forgiveness."

"By the way, Hank, here's a letter for you."

The communication was brief. It was from New Orleans and ran thus: "The five letters which we have published have awakened no interest whatever, and I am therefore instructed to discontinue the service. Inclosed please find check for the amount due you."

"What is it, Hank?"

"Oh, nothing except what I might have expected. Read it."

Witherspoon read the letter, and crumpling it, broke out in his impulsive way: "That's all right, old fellow. It fits right into my plan, and now let me tell you what that is. We'll leave here to-morrow and go over to Dura and settle up there. I don't know how long it will take, and I won't try to telegraph until we get through. Dura isn't known as a harbor, it is such a miserably small place, but ships land there once in awhile, and we can sail from there. But the main part of my plan is that you are to go with me and live in Chicago; and I'll bet we have a magnificent time. I'll go in the store, and I'll warrant that father—don't that sound strange?—that father can get you a good place on one of the newspapers. You haven't had a chance. Hank, and when you do get one, I'll bet you can lay out the best of them. What do you say?"

"Henry," said the dark-visaged DeGolyer—and the light of affection beamed in his eyes—"Henry, you are a positive charm; and if I should meet a girl adorned with a disposition like yours, I would unstring my heart, hand it to her and say, 'Here, miss, this belongs to you.'"

"Oh, you may find one. I've got a sister, you know. What! are you trying to look embarrassed? Do you know what I'm going to say? I'm going to lead you up to my sister and say, 'Here, I have caught you a prince; take him.'"

"Nonsense, my boy."

"That's all right; but, seriously, will you go with me?"

"I will."

"Good. We'll get ready to-night and start early in the morning. But I mustn't forget to see the priest again. He was a friend when I needed one; he took charge of uncle's burial. But," he suddenly broke off with rising spirits, "won't we have a time? Millionaire, eh? I'll learn that business and make it worth ten millions."

CHAPTER IV.

A STRANGE REQUEST.

The next morning, before it was well light, and at a time when brisk youth and slow age were seeking the place of confession, Henry Witherspoon went to the priest, not to acknowledge a sin, but to avow a deep gratitude. The journey was begun early; it was in July. The morning was braced with a cool breeze, the day was cloudless, and night's lingering gleam of silver melted in the gold of morn. Young Witherspoon's impressive nature was up with joy or down with sadness. The prospect of his new life was a happiness, and the necessity to leave his old uncle in a foreign country was a sore regret; so happiness and regret strove against each other, but happiness, advantaged with a buoyant heart as a contest-ground, soon ended the struggle.

On a brown hill-top they met the sunrise, and from a drowsy roosting-place they flushed a flock of greenish birds. Witherspoon stood in his stirrups and waved his hat. "Good-by," he cried, "but you needn't have got up so soon. We didn't want you. Hank," he said, turning sideways in his saddle, "I think we can get there in about five days, at the pace we'll be compelled to go; and we can sell these mules or give them away, just as we like. Going home! I can't get the strangeness of it out of my head. And a sister, too, mind you. I'm beginning to feel like a man now. You see, uncle wanted me to be a boy as long as I could, and it was only of late that he began to tell me that I must put aside foolishness; but I am beginning to feel like a man now."

"You will need to feel like one when you take up your new responsibilities. You are playing now, but it may be serious enough after a while."

"What! Don't preach, Hank. Responsibilities! Why, I'll throw them over my shoulder like a twine string. But let me tell you something. There's one thing I'm not going to allow—they shan't say a word against that old man. Oh, I know the trouble and grief he brought about, but by gracious, he had a cause. If—if—mother didn't love him, why did she say that if he didn't love her she would go away somewhere and grieve herself to death? That was no way to treat a fellow, especially a fellow that loves you like the mischief. And besides, why did father cut him out? Pretty mean thing for a man to slip around and steal his brother's sweetheart. In this country it would mean blood."

"You are a jewel, my boy."

"No, I'm simply just. Of course, two wrongs don't make a right, as the saying has it, but a wrong with a cause is half-way right, and I'll tell them at the very start that they better not talk about the matter. In fact, I told them so in the letter. You've had a pretty hard time of it, haven't you, Hank?"

"I shouldn't want an enemy's dog to have a harder one," DeGolyer answered.

"But you've got a good education."

"So has the hog that picks up cards and tells the time of day," said DeGolyer, "but what good does that do him? He has to work harder than other hogs, and is kept hungry so that he may perform with more sprightliness. But if I have a good education, my boy, I stole it, and I shouldn't be surprised at any time to meet an officer with a warrant of arrest sworn out against me by society."

"Good; but you didn't steal trash at any rate. But, Hank, you look for the dark when the light would serve you better. Don't do it. Throw off your trouble."

"Oh, I'm not disposed to look so much for the dark as you may imagine. Throw it off! That's good advice. It is true that we may sometimes throw off a trouble, but we can't very well throw off a cause. Some natures are like a piece of fly-paper—a sorrow alights and sticks there. But that isn't my nature. It doesn't take much to make me contented."

The weather remained pleasant, and the travelers were within a day's ride of Dura, when Witherspoon complained one morning of feeling ill, and by noon be could scarcely sit in his saddle.

"Let us stop somewhere," DeGolyer urged.

"No," Witherspoon answered, "let us get to Dura as soon as we can. I've got a fever, haven't I?"

DeGolyer leaned over and placed his hand on Witherspoon's forehead. "Yes, you have."

"The truth is, I haven't felt altogether right since the first day after we started, but I thought it would wear off."

When they reached Dura, Witherspoon was delirious. Not a ship was in port, and DeGolyer took him to an inn and summoned such medical aid as the hamlet afforded. The physician naturally gave the case a threatening color, and it followed that he was right, for at the close of the fourth day the patient gave no promise of improvement. The innkeeper said that sometimes a month passed between the landing of ships at that point. The fifth day came. DeGolyer sat by the bedside of his friend, fanning him. The doctor had called and had just taken his leave.

"Give me some water, Hank."

"Ah, you are coming around all right, my boy," DeGolyer cried. He brought the water; and when the patient drank and shook his head as a signal to take away the cup, DeGolyer asked; "Don't you feel a good deal better?"

"No."

"But your mind is clear?"

"Yes."

"Shall I put another cold cloth on your head?"

"If you please."

And when DeGolyer had gently done this, Witherspoon said: "Sit down here, Hank."

"All right, my boy, here I am."

"Hank, I'm not going to get well."

"Oh, yes, you are, and don't you let any such nonsense enter your head."

"It's a good ways from nonsense, I tell you. I know what I'm talking about; I know just as well as can be that I'm going to die—now you wait till I get through. It can't be helped, and there's no use in taking on over it. I did want to see my father and mother and sister, but it can't be helped."

DeGolyer was on his knees beside the bed. He attempted to speak, but his utterance was choked; and the tears in his eyes blurred to spectral dimness the only human being whom he held warm in his heart.

"Hank, while I am able to talk I've got a great favor to ask of you. And you'll grant it, won't you?"

"Yes," DeGolyer Bobbed.

For a few moments the sick man lay in silence. He fumbled about and found DeGolyer's hand. "My father and mother are waiting for me," he said. "They have been raised into a new life. If I never come it will be worse than if I had never been found, for they'll have a new grief to bear, and it may be heavier than the first. They must have a son, Hank."

"My dear boy, what do you mean?"

"I mean that if I die—and I know that I am going to die—you must be their son. You must go there, not as Henry DeGolyer, but as Henry Witherspoon, their own son."

"Merciful God! I can't do that."

"But if you care for me you will. Take all my papers—take everything I've got—and go home. It will be the greatest favor you could do me and the greatest you could do them."

"But, my dear boy, I should be a liar and a hypocrite."

"No, you would be playing my part because I couldn't play it. Once you said that you would give me your life if I wanted it, and now I want it. You can make them happy, and they'll be so proud of you. Won't you try it? I would do anything on earth for you, and now you deny me this—and who knows but my spirit might enter into you and form a part of your own? How can you refuse me when you know that I think more of you than I do of anybody? This is no boy's prank—I'm a man now. Will you?"

"Henry," said DeGolyer, "this is merely a feverish notion that has come out of your derangement. Put it by, and after a while we will laugh at it. Is the cloth hot again?"

"Yes."

"I'll change it." And DeGolyer, removing the cloth and placing his hand on his friend's forehead, added: "Your fever isn't so high as it was yesterday. You are coming out all right."

"No, I tell you that I'm going to die; and you won't do me the only favor I could ask. Don't you remember saying, not long ago, that a man's life is a pretense almost from the beginning to the end?"

"I don't remember saying it, but it agrees with what I have often been compelled to think."

"Well, then, if you think that life is a pretense, why not pretend by request?"

"Well talk about it some other time, my boy."

"But there may not be any other time."

"Oh, yes, there will be. Don't you think you can sleep now?"

"No, I don't think I can sleep and wake up again."

But he did sleep, and he did awake again. Three more days passed wearily away, and the patient was delirious most of the time. DeGolyer's acquaintance with Spanish was but small, and he could comprehend but little of what a pedantic doctor might say, yet he learned that there was not much encouragement to be drawn from the fact that the sick man's mind sometimes returned from its troubled wandering.

DeGolyer was again alone with his friend. It was a hot though a blustery afternoon, and the sea, in sight through the open door, sounded the deeper notes of its endless opera.

"Hank."

"I'm here, my boy."

"Have you thought about what I told you to do?"

"Are you still clinging to that notion?"

"No; it is clinging to me. Have you thought about it?"

"Yes."

"And what did you think?"

"I thought that for you I would take the risk of playing a part that you are unable to perform. But really, Henry, I'm too old."

"You have promised, and my mind is at ease," the sick man said, with a smile. "Now I feel that I have given my life over to you and that I shall not really be dead so long as you are alive. Among my things you will find some letters written by my mother to my uncle, and a small gold chain and a locket that I wore when I was sto—when uncle took me. That's all."

"I will do the best I can, but I'm too old."

"You are only a few years older than I am. They'll never know. They'll be blind. You'll have the proof. Go at once. You are Henry Witherspoon. That's all."

The blustery afternoon settled into a calm as the sun went down, and a change came with the night. The sufferer's mind flitted back for a moment, and in that speck of time he spoke not, but he gave his friend a look of gratitude. All was over. During the night DeGolyer sat alone by the bedside. And a ship came at morning.

A kind-hearted priest offered his services. "The ship has merely dodged in here," said he, "and won't stay long, and it may be a month before another one comes." And then he added: "You may leave these melancholy rites to me."

A man stepped into the doorway and cried in Spanish: "The ship is ready."

DeGolyer turned to the priest, and placing a purse on the table, said: "I thank you." Then he stepped lightly to the bedside and gazed with reverence and affection upon the face of the dead boy. He spoke the name of Christ, and the priest heard him say: "Take his spirit to Thy love and Thy mercy, for no soul more forgiving has ever entered Thy Father's kingdom." He took up his traveling-bag and turned toward the door. "One moment," said the priest, and pointing to the couch, he asked: "What name?"

"Henry—Henry DeGolyer."

CHAPTER V.

DISSECTING A MOTIVE.

Onward went the ship, nodding to the beck and call of mighty ocean. DeGolyer—or, rather, Henry Witherspoon, as now he knew himself—walked up and down the deck. And it seemed that at every turn his searching grief had found a new abiding-place for sorrow. His first strong attachment was broken, and he felt that in the years to come, no matter what fortune they might bring him, there could not grow a friendship large enough to fill the place made vacant by his present loss. An absorbing love might come, but love is by turns a sweet and anxious selfishness, while friendship is a broad-spread generosity. Suddenly he was struck by the serious meaning of his obligation, and with stern vivisection he laid bare the very nerves of his motive. At first he could find nothing save the discharge of a sacred duty; but what if this trust had entailed a life of toil and sacrifice? Would he have accepted it? In his agreement to this odd compact was there not an atom of self-interest? Over and over again he asked himself these questions, and he strove to answer them to the honor of his incentive, but he felt that in this strife there lay a prejudice, a hope that self might be cleared of all dishonor. But was there ever a man who, in the very finest detail, lived a life of perfect truth and freedom from all selfishness? If so, why should Providence have put him in a grasping world? Give conscience time and it will find an easy bed, and yet the softest bed may have grown hard ere morning comes.

"Who am I that I should carp with myself?" the traveler mused. "Have the world and its litter of pups done anything for me?" He walked up and down the deck. "God knows that I shall always love the memory of that dear boy. But if all things are foreseen and are still for the best, why should he have died? Was it to throw upon me this great opportunity? But who am I? And why should a special opportunity be wrought for me? But who is anybody?"

Going whither? Home. A father—and he thought of a drunken painter. A mother—and his mind flew back to a midnight when arms that had carried him warm with life were cold in death. A millionaire's son—that thought startled him. What were the peculiar duties of a millionaire's son? No matter. They might impose a strain, but they could never be so trying as constant poverty. But who had afflicted him with poverty? First his birth and then his temperament. But who gave him the temperament? He wheeled about and walked away as if he would be rid of an impertinent questioner.

When the ship reached New Orleans he went straightway to the telegraph office and sent this message to George Witherspoon: "Will leave for Chicago to-day."

And now his step was beyond recall; he must go forward. But conscience had no needles, and his mind was at rest. In expectancy there was a keen fascination. He met a reporter whom he knew, but there was no sign of recognition. A beard, thick, black and neatly trimmed, gave Henry's face an unfamiliar mold. But he felt a momentary fear, he realized that a possible danger thenceforth would lie in wait for him, and then came the easing assurance that his early life, his father and his mother, were remembered by no one of importance, and that even if he were recognized as Henry DeGolyer, he could still declare himself the stolen son of George Witherspoon. Indeed, with safety he could thus announce himself to the managing editor who had sent him to Costa Rica, and he thought of doing this, but no, his—his father wanted the secret kept until the time was ripe for its divulgence. He went into a restaurant, and for the first time in his life he felt himself free to order regardless of the prices on the bill of fare. Often, when a hungry boy, he had sold newspapers in that house, and enviously he had watched the man who seemed to care not for expenses. As he sat there waiting for his meal, a newsboy came in, and after selling him a paper, stood near the table.

"Sit down, little fellow, and have something to eat."

This was sarcasm, and the boy leered at him.

"Sit down, won't you?"

"What are you givin' me?"

"This," said Henry, and he handed him a dollar.

CHAPTER VI.

WAITING AT THE STATION.

Men bustling their way to the lunch counter; old women fidgeting in the fear that they had forgotten something; man in blue crying the destination of outgoing trains; weary mothers striving to soothe their fretful children; the tumult raised by cabmen that were crowding against the border-line of privilege; bells, shrieks, new harshnesses here and there; confusion everywhere—a railway station in Chicago.

"The train ought to be here now," said George Witherspoon, looking at his watch.

"Do you know exactly what train he is coming on?" his wife asked.

"Yes; he telegraphed again from Memphis."

"You didn't tell me you'd got another telegram."

"My dear, I thought I did. The truth is that I've been so rushed and stirred up for the last day or so that I've hardly known what I was about."

"And I can scarcely realize now what I'm waiting for," said a young woman. "Mother, you look as if you haven't slept any for a week."

"And I don't feel as if I have."

George Witherspoon, holder of the decisive note in the affairs of that great department store known as "The Colossus," may not by design have carried an air that would indicate the man to whom small tradesman regarded it as a mark of good breeding to cringe, but even in a place where his name was not known his appearance would strongly have appealed to commercial confidence. That instinct which in earlier life had prompted fearless speculation, now crystalized into conscious force, gave unconscious authority to his countenance. He was tall and with so apparent a strength in his shoulders as to suggest the thought that with them he had shoved his way to success. He was erect and walked with a firm step; he wore a heavy grayish mustache that turned under; his chin had a forceful squareness; he was thin-haired, nearing baldness. In his manner was a sort of firm affability, and his voice was of that tone which success nearly always assumes, kindly, but with a suggestion of impatience. His eyes were restless, as though accustomed to keep watch over many things. When spoken to it was his habit to turn quickly, and if occasion so warranted, to listen with that pleasing though frosty smile which to the initiated means, "I shall be terribly bored by any request that you may make, and shall therefore be compelled to refuse it." He was sometimes liberal, though rarely generous. If he showed that a large disaster touched his heart, he could not conceal the fact that a lesser mishap simply fell upon his irritated nerves; and therefore he might contribute to a stricken city while refusing to listen to the distress of a family.

Mrs. Witherspoon was a dark-eyed little woman. In her earlier life she must have been handsome, for in the expression of her face there was a reminiscence of beauty. Her dimples had turned traitor to youth and gossiped of coming age. Women are the first to show the contempt with which wealth regards poverty, the first to turn with resentment upon former friends who have been left in the race for riches, the first to feel the overbearing spirit that money stirs; but this woman had not lost her gentleness.

The girl was about nineteen years of age. She was a picture of style, delsarted to ease of motion. She was good-looking and had the whims and the facial tricks that are put to rhyme and raved over in a sweetheart, but which are afterward deplored in a wife.

"I feel that I shan't know how to act."

Witherspoon looked at his daughter and said, "Ellen."

"But, papa, I just know I shan't. How should I know? I never met a brother before; never even thought of such a thing."

"Don't be foolish. We are not the only people that have been placed in such a position. No matter how you may be situated, remember that you are not a pioneer; no human strain is new."

"But it's the only time I was ever placed in such a position."

"Nonsense. In this life we must learn to expect anything." Mrs. Witherspoon was silently weeping. "Caroline, don't, please. Remember that we are not alone. A trial of joy, my dear, is the easiest trial to bear."

"Not always," she replied.

A counter commotion in the general tumult—the train.

A crowd waited outside the iron gate. A tall young man came through with the hastening throng. He caught Witherspoon's wandering eye. Strangers looking for each other are guided by a peculiar instinct, but Witherspoon stood questioning that instinct. The mother could see nothing with distinctness. The young man held up a gold chain.

It was soon over. People who were hastening toward a train turned to look upon a flurry of emotion—a mother faint with joy; a strong man stammering words of welcome; a girl seemingly thrilled with a new prerogative; a stranger in a nest of affection.

"Come, let us get into the carriage," said Witherspoon. "Come, Caroline, you have behaved nobly, and don't spoil it all now."

She gave her husband a quick though a meek glance and took Henry's arm. When the others had seated themselves in the carriage, Witherspoon stood for a moment on the curb-stone.

"Drive to the Colossus," he commanded. Mrs. Witherspoon put out her hand with a pleading gesture. "You are not going there before you go home, are you, dear?" she asked.

"I am compelled to go there, but I'll stay only a moment or two," he answered. "I'll simply hop out for a minute and leave the rest of you in the carriage. There's something on hand that needs my attention at once. Drive to the Colossus," he said as he stepped into the carriage. A moment later he remarked: "Henry, you are different from what I expected. I thought you were light."

"He is just like my mother's people," Mrs. Witherspoon spoke up. "All the Craigs were dark."

They drove on in a silence not wholly free from embarrassment. Through the carriage windows Henry caught glimpses of a world of hurry. The streets, dark and dangerous with traffic, stretched far away and ended in a cloud of smoke. "It will take time to realize all this," the young men mused, and meeting the upturned eyes of Mrs. Witherspoon, who had clasped her hands over his shoulder, he said:

"Mother, I hope you are not disappointed in me."

"You are just like the Craigs," she insisted. "They were dark. And Uncle Louis was so dark that he might have been taken for an Italian, and Uncle Harvey"—She hesitated and glanced at her husband.

"What were you going to say about your Uncle Harvey?" Henry asked.

"Nothing, only he was dark just like all the Craigs."

There is a grunt which man borrowed from the goat, or which, indeed, the goat may have borrowed from man. And this grunt, more than could possibly be conveyed by syllabic utterance, expresses impatience. Witherspoon gave this goat-like grunt, and Henry knew that he had heard of the Craigs until he was sick of their dark complexion. He knew, also, that the great merchant had not a defensive sense of humor, for humor, in the exercise of its kindly though effective functions, would long ago have put these Craigs to an unoffending death.

"I don't see why you turn aside to talk of complexion when the whole situation is so odd," said Ellen, speaking to her father. "I am not able to bring myself down to a realization of it yet, although I have been trying to ever since we got that letter from that good-for-nothing country, away off yonder. You must know that it strikes me differently from what it does any one else. It is all romance with me—pure romance."

Witherspoon said nothing, but his wife replied: "It isn't romance with me; it is an answer to a prayer that my heart has been beating year after year."

"But don't cry, mother," said Ellen. "Your prayer has been answered."

"Yes, I know that, but look at the long, long years of separation, and now he comes back to me a stranger."

"But we shall soon be well acquainted," Henry replied, "and after a while you may forget the long years of separation."

"I hope so, my son, or at least I hope to be able to remember them without sorrow. But didn't you, at times, fancy that you remembered me? Couldn't you recall my voice?" Her lips trembled.

"No," he answered, slowly shaking his head. This was the cause for more tears. She had passed completely out of his life. Ah, the tender, the hallowed egotism of a mother's love!

The carriage drew up to the sidewalk, and the driver threw open the door. "I'll be back in just a minute," said Witherspoon, as he got out; and when he was gone his wife began to apologize for him. "He's always so busy. I used to think that the time might come when he could have more leisure, but it hasn't."

"What an immense place!" said Henry, looking out.

"One of the very largest in the world," Ellen replied. "And the loveliest silks and laces you ever saw." A few moments later she said: "Here comes father."

"Drive out Michigan," Witherspoon commanded. They were whirled away and had not gone far when the merchant, directing Henry's attention, said:

"The Auditorium."

"The what?"

"The Auditorium. Is it possible you never heard of it?"

"Oh, yes, I remember now. It was formally opened by the President."

He did remember it; he remembered having edited telegraph for a newspaper on the night when Patti's voice was first heard in this great home of music.

"Biggest theater in the world," said Witherspoon.

"Bigger than La Scala of Milan?" Henry asked.

"Beats anything in the world, and I remember when the ground could have been bought for—see that lot over there?" he broke off, pointing. "I bought that once for eighty dollars a foot and sold it for a hundred."

"Pretty good sale! wasn't it?" Henry innocently asked.

"Good sale! What do you suppose it's worth now!"

"I have no idea."

"Three thousand a foot if it's worth a penny. There never was anything like it since the world began. I'm not what you might call an old-timer, but I've seen some wonderful changes here. Now, this land right here—fifteen hundred a foot; could have bought it not so very long ago for fifty. I tell you the world never saw anything like it. Why, just think of it; there are men now living who could have bought the best corner in this city for a mere song. There's no other town like this. Look at the buildings. When a man has lived here a while he can't live in any other town—any other town is too slow for him—and yet I heard an old man say that he could have got all the land he wanted here for a yoke of oxen."

"But he hadn't the oxen, eh?"

"Of coarse he had," Witherspoon replied, "but who wanted to exchange useful oxen for a useless mud-hole? Beats anything in this world."

Henry looked at him in astonishment. His tongue, which at first had seemed to be so tight with silence, was now so loose with talk. He had dropped no hint of his own importance; he had made not the slightest allusion to the energy and ability that had been required to build his mammoth institution. His impressive dignity was set aside; he was blowing his town's horn.

The carriage turned into Prairie Avenue. "Look at all this," Witherspoon continued, waving his hand. "I remember when it didn't deserve the name of a street. Look at that row of houses. Built by a man that used to drive a team. There's a beauty going up. Did you ever see anything like it?"

"I can well say that I never have," Henry answered.

"I should think not," said Witherspoon, and pointing to the magnificent home of some obscure man, he added: "I remember when an old shed stood there. Just look at that carving in front."

"Who lives there?" Henry asked.

"Did hear, but have forgotten. Yonder's one of green stone. I don't like that so well. Here we have a sort of old stone. That house looks as though it might be a hundred years old, but it was put up last year. Well, here's our house."

The carriage drew up under the porte-cocher of a mansion built of cobble-stones. It was as strong as a battlement, but its outlines curved in obedience to gracefulness and yielded to the demand of striking effect. Viewed from one point it might have been taken for a castle; from another, it suggested itself as a spireless church. Strangers halted to gaze at it; street laborers looked at it in admiration. It was showy in a neighborhood of mansions.

Mrs. Witherspoon led Henry to the threshold and tremulously kissed him. And it was with this degree of welcome that the wanderer was shown into his home.

CHAPTER VII.

A MOTHER'S AFFECTION.

In one bedazzled moment we review a whole night of darkness. A luxury brings with it the memory of a privation. The first glimpse of those drawing-rooms, gleaming with white and warm with gold, were seen against a black cloud, and that cloud was the past. The wanderer was startled; there was nothing now to turn aside the full shock of his responsibilities. He felt the enormity of his pretense, and he began again to pick at his motive. Mrs. Witherspoon perceived a change in him and anxiously asked if he were ill. No, but now that his long journey was ended he felt worn by it. The father saw him with a fresh criticism and said that he looked older than his years bespoke him; but the mother, quick in every defense, insisted that he had gone through enough to make any one look old; and besides, the Craigs, being a thoughtful people, always looked older than they really were. In the years that followed, this first day "at home" was reviewed in all its memories—the library with its busts of old thinkers and its bright array of new books; the sober breakfast-room in which luncheon was served; the orderly servants; the plants; the gold fishes; the heavy hangings; a tiger skin with a life-expressive head; the portraits of American statesmen; the rich painting of a cow that flashed back the tradition of a trade-mark bull on a dead wall.

Evening came with melody in the music-room; midnight, and Henry sat alone in his room. He was heavy with sadness. The feeling that henceforth his success must depend upon the skill of his hypocrisy, and that he must at last die a liar, lay upon him with cold oppression. Kindness was a reproach and love was a censure. Some one tapped at the door.

"Come in."

Mrs. Witherspoon entered. "I just wanted to see if you were comfortable," she said, seating herself in a rocking-chair.

"So much so that I am tempted to rebel against it," he answered.

She smiled sadly. "There are so many things that I wanted to say to you, dear, but I haven't had a chance, somehow."

Her eyes were tear-stricken and her voice trembled. "It isn't possible that you could know what a mother's love is, my son."

"I didn't know, but you have taught me."

"No, not yet; but I will—if you'll let me."

"If I'll let you?" He looked at her in surprise.

"Yes, if you will bear with me. Sit here," she said, tapping the broad arm of the chair. He obeyed, and she took his arms and put them about her neck. "There hasn't been much love in my life, precious. Perhaps I am not showy enough, not strong enough for the place I occupy."

"But you are good enough to hold the place of an angel."

She attempted to speak, but failed. Something fell on her hand, and she looked up. The man was weeping. They sat there in silence.

"In your early life," she said, pressing his arms closer about her neck, "my love sought to protect you, but now it must turn to you for support. Your uncle—but you told me not to speak of him." She paused a moment, and then continued: "Your uncle did me a deep wrong, but I had wronged him. Oh, I don't know why I did. And he had kept my letters all these years." Another silence. She was the first to speak. "Ellen loves me, but a daughter's love is more of a help than a support."

"And father?"

"Oh, he is good and kind," she quickly answered, "but somehow I haven't kept up with him. He is so strong, and I fear that my nature is too simple; I haven't force enough to help him when he's worried. He hasn't said so, but I know it! And of course you don't understand me yet; but won't you bear with me?"

In her voice there was a sad pleading for love, and this man, though playing a part, dropped the promptings of his role, and with the memory of his own mother strong within him, pressed this frail woman to his bosom and with tender reverence kissed her.

"Oh," she sobbed, "I thank God for bringing you back to me. Good night."

He closed the door when she was gone, and stood as though he knew not whither to turn. He looked at the onyx clock ticking on the mantelpiece. He listened to the rumble of a carriage in the street. He put out his hands, and going slowly into his sleeping-room, sank upon his knees at the bedside.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE DOMAIN OF A GREAT MERCHANT.

To one who has gazed for many hours upon whirling scenes, and who at his journey's end has gone to sleep in an unfamiliar place, the question of self-identity presents itself at morning and of the dozing faculties demands an answer. Henry lay in bed, catching at flitting consciousness, but missing it. He tried to recall his own name, but could not. One moment he felt that he was on board a ship, rising and sinking with the mood of the sea; then he was on a railway train, catching sight of a fence that streaked its way across a field. He saw a boy struggling with a horse that was frightened at the train; he saw a girl wave her beflowered hat—a rushing woods, a whirling open space, a sleepy station. Once he fancied that he was a child lying in bed, not at midnight, but at happy, bird-chattered morning, when the sun was bright; but then he heard a roar and he saw a street stretch out into a darkening distance, and he knew that he was in a great city. Consciousness loitered within reach, and he seized it. He was called to breakfast.

How bright the morning. Through the high and church-like windows softened sunbeams fell upon the stairway. He heard Ellen singing in the music-room; he met the rich fragrance of coffee. Mrs. Witherspoon, with a smile of quiet happiness, stood at the foot of the stairs. Ellen came out with a lithe skip and threw a kiss at him. Witherspoon sat in the breakfast-room reading a morning newspaper.

"Well, my son, how do you find yourself this morning?" the merchant asked, throwing aside the newspaper and stretching himself back in his chair.

"First-rate; but I had quite a time placing myself before I was fully awake."

"I guess that's true of nearly everybody who comes to Chicago. It makes no difference how wide-awake a man thinks he is, he will find when he comes to this city that he has been nodding."

Breakfast was announced. Ellen took Henry's hand and said: "Come, this is your place here by me. Mother told me to sit near you; she wants me to check any threatened outbreak of your foreign peculiarities."

"Ellen, what do you mean? I didn't say anything of the sort, Henry. It could make no difference where my mother's people were brought up. The Craigs always knew how to conduct themselves."

"Oh, yes," Witherspoon spoke up, "the Craigs were undoubtedly all right, but we are dealing with live issues now. Henry, we'll go down to the store this morning"—

"So soon?" his wife interrupted.

"So soon?" the merchant repeated. "What do you mean by so soon? Won't it be time to go?"

"Oh, yes, I suppose so."

"And where do I come in?" asked the girl.

"You can go if you insist," said Witherspoon, "but there are matters that he and I must arrange at once. We've got to fix up some sort of statement for the newspapers; can't keep this thing a secret, you know, and a tailor must be consulted. Your clothes are all right, my son," he quickly added, "but—well, you understand."

Henry understood, but he had thought when he left New Orleans that he was well dressed. And now for a moment he felt ragged.

"When shall we have the reception?" Ellen asked.

"The reception," Henry repeated, looking up in alarm.

"Why, listen to him," the girl cried. "Don't you know that we must give a reception? Why, we couldn't get along without it; society would cut us dead. Think how nice it will be—invitations with 'To meet Mr. Henry Witherspoon' on them."

"Must I go through that?" Henry asked, appealing to Mrs. Witherspoon.

"Of course you must, but not until the proper time."

"Why, it will be just splendid," the girl declared. "You ought to have seen me the night society smiled and said, 'Well, we will now permit you to be one of us.' Oh, the idea of not showing you off, now that we've caught you, is ridiculous. You needn't appeal to mother. You couldn't keep her from parading you up and down in the presence of her friends."

He was looking at Mrs. Witherspoon. She smiled with more of humor than he had seen her face express, and thus delivered her opinion: "If we had no reception, people would think that we were ashamed of our son."

"All right, mother; if you want your friends to meet the wild man of Borneo who has just come to town, I have nothing more to say. Your word shall be a law with me; but I must tell you that whenever you make arrangements into which I enter, you must remember that society and I have had scarcely a hat-tipping acquaintance. I may know many things that society never even dreamed of, but some of society's simplest phases are dangerous mysteries to me."

"Nonsense," said Witherspoon. "Society may rule a poor man, but a rich man rules society. Common sense always commands respect, for nearly every rule that governs the conduct of man is founded upon it. Don't you worry about the reception or anything else. You are a man of the world, and to such a man society is a mere plaything."

"Well," replied Ellen, wrinkling her handsome brow with a frown, "I must say that you preach an odd sort of sermon. Society is supposed to hold the culture and the breeding of a community, sir."

"Yes, supposed to," Witherspoon agreed.

"Oh, well, if you question it I won't argue with you." And giving Henry a meaning look, she continued: "Of course business is first. Art drops on its worn knees and prays to business, and literature begs it for a mere nod. Everything is the servant of business."

"Everything in Chicago is," the merchant replied.

"Art is the old age of trade," said Henry. "A vigorous nation buys and sells and fights; but a nation that is threatened with decay paints and begs."

"Good!" Witherspoon exclaimed. "I think you've hit it squarely. Since we went to Europe, Ellen has had an idea that trade is rather low in the scale of human interest."

"Now, father, I haven't any such idea, and you know it, too. But I do think that people who spend their lives in getting money can't be as refined as those who have a higher aim."

Witherspoon grunted. "What do you call a higher aim? Hanging about a picture gallery and simpering over a lot of long-haired fellows in outlandish dress, ha? Is it refinement to worship a picture simply because you are not able to buy it? Some people rave over art, and we buy it and hang it up at home."

She laughed, and slipping off her chair, ran round to her father and put her arms about his neck. "I can always stir you up, can't I?"

"You can when you talk that way," he answered.

"But you know I don't mean that you aren't refined. Who could be more gentle than you are? But you must let me enjoy an occasional mischief. My mother's people, the Craigs, were all full of mischief, and"

"Ellen," said her mother.

Witherspoon laughed, and reaching back, pretended to pull the girl's ears. "Am I going down town with you?" she asked.

"No, not this morning. I'm going to drive Henry down in the light buggy. My boy, I've got as fine a span of bay horses as you ever saw. Cost me five thousand apiece. That's art for you; eh, Ellen?"

"They are beautiful," she admitted.

"Yes, and strung up with pride. Get ready, Henry, and we'll go."

When Witherspoon gathered up the lines and with the whip touched one of the horses, both jumped as though startled by the same impulse.

"There's grace for you," said Witherspoon. "Look how they plant their fore feet."

Henry did not answer. He was looking back at a palace, his home; and he, too, was touched with a whip—the thrilling whip of pride. It lasted but a moment. His memory threw up a home for the friendless, and upon a background of hunger, squalor and wretchedness his fancy flashed the picture of an Italian hag, crooning and toothless.

"We'll turn into Michigan here," said the merchant. "Isn't this a great thoroughfare? Yonder is where we lived before we built our new house. Just think what this will be when these elms are old." They sped along the smooth drive. "Ho, boys! Business is creeping out this way, and that is the reason I got over on Prairie. See, that man has turned his residence into a sort of store. A little farther along you will see fashionable humbuggery of all sorts. These are women fakes along here. Ho, boys, ho! There's where old man Colton lives. We'll meet him at the store. In the Colossus Company he is next to me. Smart old fellow, but he worked many years in the hammer-and-tongs way, and he probably never would have done much if he hadn't been shoved. Ho, boys, ho! People ought to be arrested for piling brick in the street this way. Colton was always afraid of venturing; shuddered at the thought of risking his money; wanted it where he could lay his hands on it at any time. Brooks, his son-in-law, is a sort of general manager over our entire establishment, and he is one of the most active and useful men I ever saw—bright, quick, characteristically American. I think you'll like him. That place over there"—cutting his whip toward an old frame house scalloped and corniced in fantastic flimsiness—"was sold the other day at about thirty per cent more than it would have brought a few years ago."

They turned into another street and were taken up, it seemed, by the swift trade currents that swirl at morning, rush through the noon, glide past the evening and rest for a time in the semi-calm of midnight. Chicago has begun to set the pace of a nervous nation's progress. It is a city whose growth has proved a fatal example to many an overweaning town. Materialistic, it holds no theory that points not to great results; adventurous, it has small patience with methods that slowness alone has stamped as legitimate. Worshiping a deification of real estate, and with a rude aristocracy building upon the blood of the sow and the tallow of the bull, its atmosphere discourages one artist while inviting another to rake up the showered rewards of a "boom" patronage. Feeling that naught but sleepiness and sloth should be censured, it resents even a kindly criticism. Quick to recognize the feasibility of a scheme; giving money, but holding time as a sacred inheritance. It is a re-gathering of the forces that peopled America and then made her great among nations; a mighty community with a growing literary force and with its culture and its real love for the beautiful largely confined to the poor in purse; grand in a thousand respects; with its history glaring upon the black sky of night; with the finest boulevards in America and the filthiest alleys—a giant in need of a bath.

The Colossus stood as a towering island with "a tide in the affairs of men" sweeping past. And it seemed to Henry that the buggy was cast ashore as a piece of driftwood that touches land and finds a lodgment. At an earlier day, and not so long ago either, the flaw of unconscious irony might have been picked in the name Colossus, but now the establishment, covering almost a block and rising story upon story, filled in the outlines of its pretentious christening.

"Tap, tap, tap—cash, 46; tap, tap—cash, 63," was the leading strain in this din of extensive barter and petty transaction. The Colossus boasted that it could meet every commercial demand; supply a sewing-machine needle or set up a saw-mill; receipt for gas bills and water rates or fit out a general store. Under one roof it held the resources of a city. Henry was startled by its immensity, and as he followed Witherspoon through labyrinths of bright gauzes and avenues of somber goods, he perceived that a change in the tone of the hum announced the approach of the master. And it appeared that, no matter what a girl might be doing, she began hurriedly to do something else the moment she spied Witherspoon coming toward her. The quick signs of flirtation, signals along the downward track of morality, subsided whenever this ruler came within sight; and the smirk bargain-counter miss would actually turn from the grinning idiocy of the bullet-headed fellow who had come in to admire her and would deign to wait on a poorly dressed woman who had failed to attract her attention.

The offices of the management were on the first floor, and Henry was conducted thither and shown into Witherspoon's private apartment—into the calico, bombazine, hardware and universal nick-nack holy of holies. The room was not fitted up for show, but for business. Its furniture consisted mainly of a roll-top desk, a stamp with its handle sticking up like the tail of an excited cat, a dingy carpet and several chairs of a shape so ungenial to the human form as to suggest that a hint at me desirability of a visitor's early withdrawal might have been incorporated in their construction.

"I will see if Colton has come down," Witherspoon remarked, glancing through a door into another room. "Yes, there he is. He's coming. Mr. Colton," said Witherspoon, with deep impressiveness, "this is my son Henry."

The old man bowed with a politeness in which there was a reminder of a slower and therefore a more courteous day, and taking the hand which Henry cordially offered him, said: "To meet you affects me profoundly, sir. Of course I am acquainted with your early history, and this adds to the interest I feel in you; but aside from this, to meet a son of George Witherspoon must necessarily give me great pleasure."

"Brother Colton is from Maryland," Witherspoon remarked, and a sudden shriveling about the old man's mouth told that he was smiling at what he had long since learned to believe was a capital hit of playfulness. And he bowed, grabbled up a dingy handkerchief that dangled from him somewhere, wiped off his shriveled smile, and then declared that if frankness was a mark of the Marylander, he should always be glad to acknowledge his native State.

Brooks, Colton's son-in-law, now came in. This man, while a floor-walker in a dry-goods store, had attracted Witherspoon's notice, and a position in the Colossus, at that time an experiment, was given him. He recognized the demands of his calling, and he strove to fit himself to them. Several years later he married Miss Colton, and now he was in a position of such confidence that many schemes for the broadening of trade and for the pleasing of the public's changeful fancy were entrusted to his management. He was of a size which appears to set off clothes to the best advantage. His face was pale and thoughtful, and he had the shrewd faculty of knowing when to smile. His eyes were of such a bulge as to give him a spacious range of vision without having to turn his head, and while moving about in the discharge of his duty, he often saw sudden situations that were not intended for his entertainment.

Brooks was prepared for the meeting, and conducted himself with a dignity that would have cast no discredit upon the ablest floor-walker in Christendom. He had known that he could not fail to be impressed by one so closely allied by blood to Mr. George Witherspoon, but really he had not expected to meet a man of so distinguished a bearing, a traveler and a scholar, no doubt.

"Traveler enough to know that I have seen but little, and scholar enough to feel my ignorance," Henry replied.

"Oh, you do yourself an injustice, I am sure, but you do it gracefully. We shall meet often, of course. Mr. Witherspoon," he added, addressing the head of the Colossus, "we have just arrested that Mrs. McNutt."

"How's that? What Mrs. McNutt?"

"Why, the woman who was suspected of shop-lifting. This time we caught her in the act."

"Ah, hah. Have you sent her away?"

"Not yet. She begs for an interview with you—says she can explain everything."

"Don't want to see her; let her explain to the law."

"That's what I told her, sir."

Brooks bowed and withdrew. Old man Colton was already at his desk.

"Now, my son," said Witherspoon, aimlessly fumbling with some papers on his desk, "I should think that the first thing to be attended to is that statement for the newspapers. Wait a moment, and we will consult Brooks. He knows more in that line than any one else about the place." He tapped a bell. "Mr. Brooks," he said when a boy appeared. Brooks came, and Witherspoon explained.

"Ah, I see," said Brooks. "You don't want to give it to any one paper, for that isn't business. We'll draw off a statement and send it to the City Press Association, and then it will be given out to all the papers."

"That is a capital idea; you will help us get it up."

"Yes, sir," said Brooks, bowing.

"That will not be necessary," Henry protested, unable to disguise his disapproval of the arrangement. "I can write it in a very short time."

"Ah," Witherspoon replied, "but Brooks is used to such work. He writes our advertisements."

"But this isn't an advertisement, and I prefer to write it."

"Of course, if you can do it satisfactorily, but I should think that it would be better if done by a practiced hand."

"I think so too," Henry rejoined, "and for that reason I recommend my own hand. I have worked on newspapers."

"That so? It may be fortunate so far as this one instance is concerned, but as a general thing I shouldn't recommend it. Newspaper men have such loose methods, as a rule, that they never accomplish much when they turn their attention to business."

Henry laughed, but the merchant had spoken with such seriousness that he was not disposed to turn it off with a show of mirth. His face remained thoughtful, and he said: "We had several newspaper men about here, and not one of them amounted to anything. Brooks, your services will not be needed. In fact, two of them were dishonest," he added, when Brooks had quitted the room. "They were said to be good newspaper men, too. One of them came with 'Journalist' printed on his card; had solicited advertisements for nearly every paper in town. They were all understood to be good solicitors."

"What," said Henry, "were they simply advertising solicitors?"

"Why, yes; and they were said to be good ones."

"But you must know, sir, that an advertising solicitor is not a newspaper man. It makes me sick—I beg your pardon. But it does rile me to hear that one of these fellows has called himself a newspaper man. Of course there are honest and able men in that employment, but they are not to be classed with men whose learning, judgment and strong mental forces make a great newspaper."

So new a life sprang into his voice, and so strong a conviction emphasized his manner, that Witherspoon, for the first time, looked on him with a sort of admiration.

"Well, you seem to be loaded on this subject."

"Yes, but not offensively so, I hope. Now, give me the points you want covered."

"All right; sit here."

Henry took Witherspoon's chair; the merchant walked up and down the room. The points were agreed upon, and the writer was getting well along with his work when Witherspoon suddenly paused in his walk and said to some one outside: "Show him in here."

A pale and restless-looking young man with green neckwear entered the room. "Now, sir," the merchant demanded somewhat sharply, "what do you want with me? You have been here three or four times, I understand. What do you want?"

"We are not alone," the young man answered, glancing at Henry.

"State your business or get out."

"Well, it's rather a delicate matter, sir, and I didn't want anything to do with it, but we don't always have our own way, you know. Er—the editor of the paper"—

"What paper?"

"The Weekly Call. The editor sent me with instructions to ask you if this is true?"

He handed a proof-slip to the merchant, and Henry saw Witherspoon's face darken as he read it. The next moment the great merchant stormed: "There isn't a word of truth in it. It is an infamous lie from start to finish."

"I told him I didn't think it was true," said the young man, "but he talked as if he believed it; remarked that you never advertised with him anyway."

"Advertise with him! Why, I didn't know until this minute that such a paper existed. How much of an advertisement does he expect?"

"Hold on a moment!" Henry cried. "Let me kick this fellow into the street."

"Nothing rash," said Witherspoon, putting out his hand. "Sit down, Henry. It will be all right. It's something you don't understand." And speaking to the visitor, he added: "Send me your rates."

"I have them here, sir," he replied, shying out of Henry's reach. He handed a card to Witherspoon.

"Let me see, now. Will half a column for a year be sufficient?"

"Well, that's rather a small ad, sir."

Henry got up again. "I think I'd better kick him into the street."

"No, no; sit down there. Let me manage this. Here." The blackmailer had retreated to the door. "You go back to your editor and tell him that I will put in a column for one year. Wait. Has anybody seen this?" he added, holding up the proof-slip.

"Nobody, sir, and I will have the type distributed as soon as I get back."

"See that you do. Tell Brooks; he will send you the copy. Now get out. Infamous scoundrel!" he said when the fellow was gone. "But don't say anything about it at home, for it really amounts to nothing."

He tore the proof-slip into small fragments and threw them into the spittoon.

"What is it all about?" Henry asked.

"Oh, it's the foulest of fabrication. About a year ago there came a widow from Washington with a letter from one of our friends, and asked for a position in the store. Well, we gave her employment, and—and it is about her; but it really amounts to nothing."

"Why, then, didn't you let me kick the scoundrel into the street?"

"My dear boy, to a man who has the money it is easier to pay than to explain. The public is greedy for scandal, but looks with suspicion and coldness upon a correction. One is sweet; the other is tasteless. The rapid acquisition of wealth is associated with some mysterious crime, and men who have failed in wild speculations are the first to cry out against the millionaire. The rich man must pay for the privilege of being rich."

The statement was sent to the city press. It reminded the public of the abduction of Henry Witherspoon; touched upon the sensation created at the time, and upon the long season of interest that had followed; explained the part which the uncle had played, and delicately gave his cause for playing it. And the return of the wanderer was set forth with graphic directness.

At noon the merchant and Henry ate luncheon in a club where thick rugs hushed a foot-fall into a mere whisper of a walk, where servants, grave of countenance and low of voice, seemed to underscore the chilliness of the place. Henry was introduced to a number of astonished men, who said that they welcomed him home, and who immediately began to talk about something else; and he was shown through the large library, where a solitary man sat looking at the pictures in a comic weekly. After leaving the club they went to a tailor's shop, and then drove over the boulevards and through the parks. Witherspoon, with no pronounced degree of pride, had conducted Henry through the Colossus; he had been pleased, of course, at the young man's astonishment, and he must have been moved by a strong surge of self-glorification when his son wondered at the broadness of the Witherspoon empire, yet he had held in a strong subjection all signs of an unseemly pride. But when he struck the boulevard system, his dignified reserve went to pieces.

"Finest on earth; no doubt about that. Oh, of course, many years of talk and thousands of pages of print have paved the Paris boulevards with peculiar interest, but wipe out association, and where would they be in comparison with these? Look at that stretch. And a few years ago this land could have been picked up for almost nothing. Look at those flowers."

It was now past midsummmer, but no suggestion of a coming blight lay upon the flower-beds. "Look at those trees. Why, in time they will knock the New Haven elms completely out."

CHAPTER IX.

THE INTERVIEWERS.

When they reached home at evening they found that five reporters had been shown into the library and were waiting for them.

"Glad to see you, gentlemen," said Witherspoon, smiling in his way of pleasant dismissal, "but really that statement contains all that it is necessary for the public to know. We don't want to make a sensation of it, you understand."

"Of course not," one of the newspaper men replied.

"And," said the merchant, with another smile, "I don't know what else can be said."

But the smile had missed its aim. The attention of the visitors was settled upon Henry. There was no chance for separate interviews, and questions were asked by first one and then another.

"You had no idea that your parents were alive?"

"Not until after my uncle's death."

"Had he ever told you why you were in his charge?"

"Yes; he said that at the death of my parents I had been given to him."

"You of course knew the story of the mysterious disappearance of Henry Witherspoon."

"Yes; when a boy I had read something about it."

"In view of the many frauds that had been attempted, hadn't you a fear that your father might he suspicious of you?"

"No; I had forwarded letters and held proof that could not be disputed. The mystery was cleared up."

"How old are you?"

"I shall be twenty-five next—next"—

"December the fourteenth," Witherspoon answered for him.

"The truth is," said Henry, "uncle did not remember the exact date of my birth."

"Was your uncle a man of means?"

"Well, I can hardly say that he was. He speculated considerably, and though he was never largely successful, yet he always managed to live well."

"Were you engaged in any sort of employment?"

"Yes, at different times I was a reporter."

"It is not necessary that the public should know all this," said Witherspoon.

"But we can't help it," Henry replied. "The statement we sent out would simply serve to hone and strap public curiosity to a keen edge. I expected something of this sort. The only thing to do is to get through with it as soon as we can."

When the interview was ended Henry went to the front door with the reporters, and at parting said to them: "I hope to see you again, gentlemen, and doubtless I shall. I am one of you."

At dinner that evening Witherspoon was in high spirits. He joked—a recreation rare with him—and he told a story—a mental excursion of marked uncommonness.

"What, Henry, don't you drink wine at all?" the merchant asked.

"No, sir, I stand in mortal fear of it." The vision of a drunken painter, he always fancied, hung like a fog between him and the liquor glass.

"It's well enough, my son."

"None of the Craigs were drunkards," said Ellen, giggling.

"Ellen," Mrs. Witherspoon solemnly enjoined, "my mother's people shall not be made sport of. It is true that there were no drunkards among them. And why?"

"Because none of them got drunk, I should think," Henry ventured to suggest.

"That, of course, was one reason, my son, but the main reason was that they knew how to govern themselves."

The evening flew away with music and with talk of a long ago made doubly dear by present happiness. The hour was growing late. Witherspoon and Henry sat in the library, smoking. Ellen had gone to her room to draft a form for the invitation to Henry's reception, and Mrs. Witherspoon was on a midnight prowl throughout the house, and although knowing that everything was right, yet surprised to find it so.

"Now, my boy," said the merchant, "we will talk business. Your mother, and particularly your sister, thought it well for me to make you an allowance, and while I don't object to the putting of money aside for you, yet I should rather have you feel the manliness which comes of drawing a salary for services rendered. That is more American. You see how useful Brooks has made himself. Now, why can't you work yourself into a similar position? In the future, the charge of the entire establishment may devolve upon you. All that a real man wants is a chance, and such a chance as I now urge upon you falls to the lot of but few young men. Had such an opportunity been given to me when I was young, I should have regarded myself as one specially favored by the partial goddess of fortune."

He was now walking up and down the room. He spoke with fervor, and Henry saw how strong he was and wondered not at his great success.

"I don't often resort to figures of speech," Witherspoon continued, "but even the most practical man feels sometimes that illustration is a necessity. Words are the trademarks of the goods stored in the mind, and a flashy expression proclaims the flimsy trinket."

Was his unwonted indulgence in wine at dinner playing rhetorical tricks with his mind?

"I spoke just now of the partial goddess of fortune," the merchant continued, "in the hope that I might impress you with a deplorable truth. Fortune is vested with a peculiar discrimination. It appears more often to favor the unjust than the just. Ability and a life of constant wooing do not always win success, for luck, the factotum of fortune, often bestows in one minute a success which a life-time of stubborn toil could not have achieved. Therefore, I say to you, think well of your position, and instead of drawing idly upon your great advantage, add to it. Successful men are often niggardly of advice, while the prattling tongue nearly always belongs to failure; therefore, when a successful man does advise, heed him. I think that I should have succeeded in nearly any walk of life. Sturdy New England stock, the hard necessity for thrift, and the practical common school fitted me to push my way to the front. Don't think that I am boasting. It is no more of vanity for one to say 'I have succeeded' than to say 'I will succeed.'" He paused a moment and stood near Henry's chair. "You have the chance to become what I cannot be—one of the wealthiest men in this country." He sat down, and leaning back in his leather-covered chair, stretched forth his legs and crossed his slippered feet. He looked at Henry.

"To some men success is natural, and to others it is impossible," Henry replied. "I can well see that prosperity could not long have kept beyond your reach. Your mind led you in a certain direction, and instead of resisting, you gladly followed it. You say that you should have been a success in any walk of life, and while it is true that you would have made money, it does not follow that you would have found that contentment which is beyond all earthly price. I admit that the opportunity which you offer me is one of rarest advantage, but knowing myself, I feel that in accepting it I should be doing you an injustice. It may be so strange to you that you can't understand it, yet I haven't a single commercial instinct; and to be frank with you, that great store would be a penitentiary to me. Wait a moment." Witherspoon had bounded to his feet. "I am willing to do almost anything," Henry continued, "but I can't consent to a complete darkening of my life. I admit that I am peculiar, and shall not dispute you in your belief that my mind is not strong, but I am firm when it comes to purpose. To hear one say that he doesn't care to be the richest man in the country may strike you as the utterance of a fool, and yet I am compelled to say it. I don't want you to make me an allowance. I don't want"—

"What in God's name do you want, sir!" Witherspoon exclaimed. He was walking up and down the room, not with the regular paces which had marked his stroll a few moments before, but with the uneven tread of anger. "What in God's name can you ask?"

He turned upon Henry, and standing still, gave him a look of hard inquiry.

"I ask nothing in God's name, and surely nothing in my own. I knew that this would put you out, and I dreaded it, but it had to come. Suppose that at my age the opportunity to manage a cattle ranch had been offered you."

"I would have taken it; I would have made it the biggest cattle ranch in the country. It galls me, sir, it galls me to see my own children sticking up their noses at honest employment."

"Pardon me, but so far as I am concerned you are wrong. I seek honest employment. But what is the most honest employment? Any employment that yields an income? No; but the work that one is best fitted for and which is therefore the most satisfactory. If you had shaped my early life"—

"Andrew was a fool!" Witherspoon broke in. "He was crazy."

"But he was something of a gentleman, sir."

"Gentleman!" Witherspoon snorted; "he was the worst of all thieves—a child-stealer."

"And had you been entirely blameless, sir?"

"What! and do you reproach me? Now look here." He pointed a shaking finger at Henry. "Don't you ever hint at such a thing again. My God, this is disgraceful!" he muttered, resuming his uneven walk. "My hopes were so built up. Now you knock them down. What the devil do you want, sir!" he exclaimed, wheeling about.

"I will tell you if you will listen."

"Oh, yes, of course you will. It will no doubt do you great good to humiliate me."

"When you feel, sir, that I am humiliating you, one word is all you need to say."

"What's that? Come now, no foolish threats. What is it you want to do?"

"I have an idea," Henry answered, "that I could manage a newspaper."

"The devil you have."

"Yes, the devil I have, if you insist. I am a newspaper man and I like the work. It holds a fascination for me while everything else is dull. Now, I have a proposal to make, not a modest one, perhaps, but one which I hope you will patiently consider—if you can. It would be easy for you to get control of some afternoon newspaper. I can take charge of it, and in time pay back the money you invest. I don't ask you to give me a cent."

The merchant was about to reply, when Mrs. Witherspoon entered the room. "Why, what is the matter?" she asked.

Witherspoon resumed his seat, shoved his hands deep into his pockets, stretched forth his legs, crossed his feet and nervously shook them.

"What is the matter?" she repeated.

"Everything's the matter," Witherspoon declared. "I have suggested"—he didn't say demanded—"that Henry should go into the store and gradually take charge of the whole thing, and he positively refuses. He wants to ran a newspaper." The merchant grunted and shook his feet.

"But is there anything so bad about that?" she asked. "I am sure it is no more than natural. My uncle Louis used to write for the Salem Monitor."

He looked at her—he did not say a word, but he looked at her.

"And Uncle Harvey"—

He grunted, flounced out of his chair and quitted the room.

"Mother," said Henry, getting up and taking her hand, "I am grieved that this dispute arose. I know that he is set in his ways, and it is unfortunate that I was compelled to cross him, but it had to come sooner or later."

"I am very sorry, but I don't blame you, my son. If you don't want to go into the store, why should you?"

They heard Witherspoon's jolting walk, up and down the hall.

"You have but one life here on this earth," she said, "and I don't see why you should make that one life miserable by engaging in something that is distasteful to you. But if your father has a fault it is that he believes every one should think as he does. Don't say anything more to him to-night."

When Henry went out Witherspoon was still walking up and down the hall. They passed, but took not the slightest notice of each other. How different from the night before. Henry lay awake, thinking of the dead boy, and pictured his eternal sleeping-place, hard by the stormy sea.

CHAPTER X.

ROMPED WITH THE GIRL.

The morning was heavy and almost breathless. The smoke of the city hung low in the streets. Henry had passed through a dreamful and uneasy sleep. He thought it wise to remain in his room until the merchant was gone down town, and troublously he had begun to doze again when Ellen's voice aroused him. "Come on down!" she cried, tapping on the door. "You just ought to see what the newspapers have said about you. Everybody in the neighborhood is staring at us. Come on down."

Witherspoon was sitting on a sofa with a pile of newspapers beside him. He looked up as Henry entered, and in the expression of his face there was no displeasure to recall the controversy of the night before.

"Well, sir," said he, "they have given you a broad spread."

The reporters had done their work well. It was a great sensation. Henry was variously described. One report said that he had a dreaminess of eye that was not characteristic of this strong, pragmatic family; another declared him to be "tall, rather handsome, black-bearded, and with the quiet sense of humor that belongs to the temperament of a modest man." One reporter had noticed that his Southern-cut clothes did not fit him.

"He might have said something nicer than that," Ellen remarked, with a natural protest against this undue familiarity.

"I don't know why we should be spoken of as a pragmatic family," said Mrs. Witherspoon. "Of course your father has always been in business, but I don't see"—

Witherspoon began to grunt. "It's all right," said he. "It's all right." He had to say something. "Come, I must get down town."

"Shall I go with you?" Henry asked.

For a moment Witherspoon was silent. "Not unless you want to," he answered.

They sat down to breakfast. Henry nervously expected another outbreak. The merchant began to say something, but stopped on a half utterance and cleared his throat. "It is coming," Henry thought.

"I have studied over our talk of last night," said Witherspoon, "and while I won't say that you may be right, or have any excuse for presuming that you are right, I am inclined to indulge that wild scheme of yours for a while. My impression is that you'll soon get sick of it."

Mrs. Witherspoon looked at him thankfully. "And you will give him a chance, father," she said.

"Didn't I say I would? Isn't that exactly what I said? Gracious alive, don't make me out a grinding and unyielding monster. We'll look round, Henry, and see what can be done. Brooks may know of some opening. You'd better rest here to-day."

"I am deeply grateful, sir, for the concession you have made," Henry replied. "I know how you feel on the subject, and I regret"—

"All right."

"Regret that I was forced"—

"I said it was all right."

"Forced to oppose you, but I don't think that you'll have cause to feel ashamed of me."

"You have already made me feel proud of your manliness," said Witherspoon.

Henry bowed, and Mrs. Witherspoon gave her husband an impulsive look of gratitude. The merchant continued:

"You have refused my offer, but you have not presumed upon your own position. Sincerity expects a reward, as a rule, and when a man is sincere at his own expense, there is something about him to admire. You don't prefer to live idly—to draw on me—and I should want no stronger proof that you are, indeed, my son. It is stronger than the gold chain you brought home with you, for that might have been found; but manly traits are not to be picked up; they come of inheritance. Well, I must go. I will speak to Brooks and see if anything can be done."

Rain began to fall. How full of restful meditation was this dripping-time, how brooding with half-formed, languorous thoughts that begin as an idea and end as a reverie. Sometimes a soothing spirit which the sun could not evoke from its boundless fields of light comes out of the dark bosom of a cloud. A bright day promises so much, so builds our hopes, that our keenest disappointments seem to come on a radiant morning, but on a dismal day, when nothing has been promised, a straggling pleasure is accidentally found and is pressed the closer to the senses because it was so unexpected.

To Henry came the conviction that he was doing his duty, and yet he could not at times subdue the feeling that pleasant environment was the advocate that had urged this decision. But he refused to argue with himself. Sometimes he strode after Mrs. Witherspoon as she went about the house, and he knew that she was happy because be followed her; and up and down the hall he romped with Ellen. They termed it a frolic that they should have enjoyed years ago, and they laughingly said that from the past they would snatch their separated childhood and blend it now. It was a back-number pleasure, they agreed, but that, like an old print, it held a charm in its quaintness. She brought out a doll that had for years been asleep in a little blue trunk. "Her name is Rose," she said, and with a broad ribbon she deftly made a cap and put it on the doll's head. After a while Rose was put to sleep again—the bright little mummy of a child's affection, Henry called her—and the playmates became older. She told him of the many suitors that had sought to woo her; of rich men; of poor young fellows who strove to keep time to the quick-changing tune of fashion; of moon-impressed youths who measured their impatient yearning.

"And when are you going to let one of them take you away?" Henry asked. Holding his hand, she had led him in front of a mirror.

"Oh, not at all," she answered, smiling at herself and then at him. "I haven't fallen in love with anybody yet."

"And is that necessary?"

"Why, you know it is, goose. I'd be a pretty-looking thing to marry a man I didn't love, wouldn't I?"

"You are a pretty thing anyway."

"Oh, do you really think so?"

"I know it."

"You are making fun of me. If you had met me accidentally, would you have thought so?"

"Surely; my eyes are always open to the truth."

"If I could meet such a man as you are I could love him—'with a dreaminess of eye not characteristic of this strong, pragmatic family.'"

She broke away from him, but he caught her. "If I were not related to you," he said, "I would be tempted to kiss you."

"Oh, you'd be tempted to kiss me, would you? If you were not related to me I wouldn't let you, but as it is—there!"

His blood tingled. Her hair was falling about her shoulders. For a moment it was a strife for him to believe that she was his sister.

"Beautiful," he said, running his fingers through her hair. "Somebody said that the glory of a woman is her hair; and it is true. It is a glory that always catches me."

"Does it? Well, I must put up my glory before papa comes. Oh, you are such a romp; but I was just a little afraid of you at first, you were so sedate and dreamy of eye."

She ran away from him, and looking back with mischief in her eyes, she hummed a schottish, and keeping time to it, danced up the stairway.

When Witherspoon came to dinner he said that he had consulted Brooks and that the resourceful manager knew of a possible opening.

The owner of the Star, a politician who had been foolish enough to suppose that with the control of an editorial page he could illumine his virtues and throw darkness over his faults, was willing to part with his experiment. "I think that we can get it at a very reasonable figure," said Witherspoon. And after a moment's silence he added: "Brooks can pull you a good many advertisements in a quiet way, and possibly the thing may be made to turn oat all right. But I tell you again that I am very much disappointed. Your place is with me—but we won't talk about it. How came you to take up that line of work?"

"I began by selling newspapers."

Mrs. Witherspoon sighed, and the merchant asked: "And did Andrew urge it?"

"Oh, no. In fact I was a reporter before he knew anything about it."

Witherspoon grunted. "I should have thought," said he, "that your uncle would have looked after you with more care. Did you receive a regular course of training?" Henry looked at him. "At school, I mean."

"Yes, in an elementary way. Afterward I studied in the public library."

"A good school, but not cohesive," Witherspoon replied. "A thousand scraps of knowledge don't make an education."

"Father, you remember my uncle Harvey," said Mrs. Witherspoon.

"Hum, yes, I remember him."

"Well, his education did not prevent his having a thousand scraps of knowledge."

"I should think not," Witherspoon replied. "No man's knowledge interferes with his education."

"My uncle Harvey knew nearly everything," Mrs. Witherspoon went on. "He could make a clock; and he was one of the best school teachers in the country. I shouldn't think that education consists in committing a few rules to memory."

"No, Caroline, not in the committing of a thousand rules to memory, but without rule there is no complete education."

"I shouldn't think that there could be a complete education anyway," she rejoined, in a tone which Henry knew was meant in defense of himself.

"Of course not," said the merchant, and turning from the subject as from something that could interest him but little, he again took up the newspaper project. "We'll investigate that matter to-morrow, and if you are still determined to go into it, the sooner the better. My own opinion is that you will soon get tired of it, in view of the better advantages that I urge upon you, for the worries of an experimental concern will serve to strengthen my proposal."

"I am resolved that in the end it shall cost you nothing," Henry replied.

"Hum, we'll see about that. But whatever you do, do it earnestly, for a failure in one line does not argue success in another direction. In business it is well to beware of men who have failed. They bring bad luck. Without success there may be vanity, but there can be but little pride, little self-respect."

Henry moved uneasily in his chair. "But among those who have failed," he replied, "we often find the highest types of manhood."

"Nonsense," rejoined the merchant. "That is merely a poetic idea. What do you mean by the highest type of manhood? Men whose theories have all been proved to be wrong? Great men have an aim and accomplish it. America is a great country, and why? Because it is prosperous."

"I don't mean that failure necessarily implies that a man's aim has been high," said Henry, "neither do I think that financial success is greatness. But our views are at variance and I fear that we shall never be able to reconcile them. I may be wrong, and it is more than likely that I am. At times I feel that there is nothing in the entire scheme of life. If a man is too serious we call him a pessimist; if he is too happy we know that he is an idiot."

"Henry, you are too young a man to talk that way."

"My son," said Mrs. Witherspoon, "the Lord has made us for a special purpose, and we ought not to question His plans."

"No, mother," Ellen spoke up, "but we should like to know something about that especial part of the plan which relates to us."

"My daughter, this is not a question for you to discuss. Your duty in this life is so clearly marked out that there can be no mistake about it. With my son it has unfortunately been different."

The girl smiled. "A woman's duty is not so clearly marked out now as it used to be, mother. As long as man was permitted to mark it out her duty was clear enough—to him."

"Hum!" Witherspoon grunted, "we are about to have a woman's advancement session. Will you please preside?" he added, nodding at Ellen. She laughed at him. He continued: "After a while Vassar will be nothing but a woman's convention. Henry, we will go down to-morrow and look after that newspaper."

CHAPTER XI.

ACKNOWLEDGED BY SOCIETY.

The politician was surprised. He had not supposed that any one even suspected that he wanted to get rid of the Star; indeed, he was not aware that the public knew of his ownership of that paper. It was a very valuable piece of property; but unfortunately his time was so taken up with other matters that he could not give it the attention it deserved. Its circulation was growing every day, and with proper management its influence could be extended to every corner of the country. Witherspoon replied that he was surprised to hear that the paper was doing so well. He did not often see a copy of it. The politician and the merchant understood each other, and the bargain was soon brought to a close.

And now the time for the reception was at hand. A florist's wagon stood in front of the door, and the young man thought, "This is my funeral." Every preparation gave him a shudder. Ellen laughed at him.

"It's well enough for you to laugh," said he, "for you are safe in the amphitheater while I am in the ring with the bull."

"Why, you great big goose, is anybody going to hurt you?"

"No; and that's the trouble. If somebody were to hurt me, I could relieve myself of embarrassment by taking up revenge."

At the very eleventh hour of preparation he was not only reconciled to the affliction of a reception, but appeared rather to look with favor upon the affair. And it was this peculiar reasoning that brought him round: "I am here in place of another. I am not known. I am as a writer who hides behind a pen-name."

The evening came with a rumble of carriages. An invitation to a reception means, "Come and be pleased. Frowns are to be left at home." The difference between one society gathering and another is the difference that exists between two white shoes—one may be larger than the other. Witherspoon was lordly, and in his smile a stranger might have seen a life of generosities. And with what a welcoming dignity he took the hand that in its time had cut the throats of a thousand hogs. Diamonds gleamed in the mellowed light, and there were smiles none the less radiant for having been carefully trained. The evening was warm. There was a wing-like movement of feathered fans. Scented time was flying away.

The guests were gone, and Henry sat in his room. He had thrown off the garments which convention had prescribed, and now, with his feet on a table, he sat smoking an old black pipe that he had lolled with on the mountains of Costa Rica. The night which was now ending waved back for review. Ellen, beautiful in an empire gown, golden yellow, brocaded satin. "Why did you try to dodge this?" she had asked in a whisper. "You are the most self-possessed man in the house. Can't you see how proud we all are of you? I have never seen mother so happy."

The perfume of praise was in the air. "Oh, I think your brother is just charming," a young woman had said to Ellen, and Henry had caught the words.

"He is like my mother's people." Mrs. Witherspoon was talking to a woman whose hair had been grayed and who appeared to enjoy the distinction of being an invalid. The Coltons and the Brooks contingent had smeared him with compliments. There was a literary group, and the titles of a hundred books were mentioned; one writer was charming; another was horrid. There was the group of household government, and the servant-girl question, which has never been found in repose, was tossed from one woman to another and caught as a bag of sweets. In the library was a commercial and real-estate gathering, and the field of speculation was broken up, harrowed and seeded down.

The black-bearded muser put his pipe aside, and from this glowing scene his thoughts flew away into a dark night when he stood in Ulmata, knocking at the door of a deserted house. He got up and stood at the window. Sparrows twittered. Threads of gray dawn streaked the black warp of night.

At morning there was another spread in the newspapers. The wonder of a few days had spent its force, and the Witherspoon sensation was done.

CHAPTER XII.

A DEMOCRACY.

The Star was printed in an old building where more than one newspaper had failed. The interior of the place was so comfortless in arrangement, so subject to unaccountable drafts of cold air in winter and breaths of hot oppression in summer, that it must have been built especially for a newspaper office. Henry found that the working force consisted mainly of a few young reporters and a large force of editorial writers. The weakness of nearly every newspaper is its editorial page, and especially so when the paper is owned by a politician. The new manager straightway began a reorganization. It was an easy matter to form an efficient staff, for in every city some of the best newspaper men are out of employment—the bright and uncertain writers who have been shoved aside by trustworthy plodders. He did not begin as one who knows it all, but he sought the co-operation of practical men. The very man who knew that the paper could not do without him was told that his services were no longer needed. In his day he had spread many an acre of platitudes; he had hammered the tariff mummy, and at every lick he had knocked out the black dust; he had snorted loud in controversy, and was arrogant in the certainty that his blowhard sentence was the frosty air of satire. He was the representative of a class. To him all clearness of expression was shallowness of thought, and brightness was the essence of frivolity. He soon found another place, for some of the Chicago newspapers still set a premium upon windy dullness.

Among the writers whom Henry decided to retain was Laura Drury. She wrote book reviews and scraps which were supposed to be of interest to women. Her room opened into Henry's, and through a door which was never shut he could see her at work. The brightness and the modesty of her face attracted him. She could not have been more than twenty years of age.

"Have you been long in newspaper work?" he asked, when she had come in to submit something to him.

"Only a short time," she answered, and returned at once to her desk. Henry looked at her as she proceeded with her work. Her presence seemed to refine the entire office. He fancied that her hair made the room brighter. His curiosity was awakened by one touch of her presence. He sought to know more of her, and when she had come in again to consult him, he said: "Wait a moment, please. How long have you been connected with this paper?"

"About three months, regularly."

"Had you worked on any other paper in the city?"

"No, sir; I have never worked on any other paper."

"Have you lived here long?"

"No, sir, I have been here only a short time. I am from Missouri."

"You didn't come alone, did you?"

She glanced at him quickly and answered: "I came alone, but I live with my aunt."

She returned to her work, and she must have discovered that he was watching her, for the next day he saw that she had moved her desk.

Henry had applied for membership in the Press Club, and one morning a reporter told him that he had been elected.

"Was there any opposition?" the editor asked.

"Not after the boys learned that you had been a reporter. You can go over at any time and sign the constitution."

"I'll go now. Suppose you come with me."

The Press Club of Chicago is a democracy. Money holds but little influence within its precincts, for its ablest members are generally "broke." There are no rules hung on its walls, no cool ceremonies to be observed. Its atmosphere invites a man to be natural, and warns him to conceal his vanities. Among that body of men no pretense is sacred. Here men of Puritan ancestry find it well to curb a puritanical instinct. A stranger may be shocked by a snort of profanity, but if he listens he will hear a bright and poetic blending of words rippling after it. A great preacher, whose sermons are read by the world, sat one day in the club, uttering the slow and heavy sentences of an oracle. He touched his finger tips together. He was discoursing on some phase of life; and an old night police reporter listened for a moment and said, "Rats!" The great man was startled. Accustomed to deliver his theories to a silent congregation, he was astonished to find that his wisdom could so irreverently be questioned. The reporter meant no disrespect, but he could not restrain his contempt for so presuming a piece of ignorance. He turned to the preacher and showed him where his theories were wrong. With a pin he touched the bubble of the great man's presumption, and it was done kindly, for when the sage arose to go he said: "I must confess that I have learned something. I fear that a preacher's library does not contain all that is worth knowing." And this, more than any of his sermons, proved his wisdom.

In the Press Club the pulse of the town can be felt, and scandals that money and social influence have suppressed are known there. The characters of public men are correctly estimated; snobs are laughed at; and the society woman who seeks to bribe the press with she cajolery of a smile is a familiar joke. Of course this is not wholly a harmonious body, for keen intelligence is never in smooth accord with itself. To the "kicker" is given the right to "kick," and keen is the enjoyment of this privilege. Every directory is the worst; every officer neglects his duty.

Literary societies know but little of this club, for literary societies despise the affairs of the real worker—they are interested in the bladdery essay written by the fashionable ass.

Henry was shown into a large room, brightly carpeted and hung with portraits. On a leather lounge a man lay asleep; at a round table a man sat, solemnly playing solitaire; and in one corner of the apartment sat several men, discussing an outrageous clause in the constitution that Henry had just signed. The new member was introduced to them. Among the number were John McGlenn, John Richmond and a shrewd little Yankee named Whittlesy. Of McGlenn's character a whole book might be written. An individual almost wholly distinct from his fellow-men; a castigator of human weakness and yet a hero-worshiper—not the hero of burning powder and fluttering flags, but any human being whose brain had blazed and lighted the world. Art was to him the soul of literature. Had he lived two thousand years ago, as the founder of a peculiar school of philosophy, he might still be alive. If frankness be a virtue, he was surely a reward unto himself. He would calmly look into the eyes of a poet and say, "Yes, I read your poem. Do you expect to keep on attempting to write poetry? But you may think better of it after a while. I wrote poems when I was of your age." He did not hate men because they were wealthy, but he despised the methods that make them rich. His temperament invited a few people to a close friendship with him, and gently warned many to keep a respectful distance. Aggressive and cutting he was, and he often said that death was the best friend of a man who is compelled to write for a living. He wrote a subscription book for a mere pittance, and one of the agents that sold it now lives in a mansion. He regarded present success as nothing to compare with an immortal name in the ages to come. He was born in the country, and his refined nature revolted at his rude surroundings, and ever afterward he held the country in contempt. In later years he had regarded himself simply as a man of talent, and when this decision had been reached he thought less of life. If his intellectual character lacked one touch, that touch would have made him a genius. When applied to him the term "gentleman" found its befitting place.

Careless observers of men often passed Richmond without taking particular notice of him. He was rather undersized, and was bald, but his head was shapely. He was so sensitive that he often assumed a brusqueness in order not to appear effeminate. His judgment of men was as swift as the sweep of a hawk, and sometimes it was as sure. He had taken so many chances, and had so closely noted that something which we call luck, that he might have been touched a little with superstition, but his soul was as broad as a prairie, and his mind was as penetrating as a drill; and a fact must have selected a close hiding-place to escape his search. Sitting in his room, with his plug of black tobacco, he had explored the world. Stanley was amazed at his knowledge of Africa, and Blaine marveled at his acquaintance with political history.

"We welcome you to our club," McGlenn remarked when Henry had sat down, "but are you sure that this is the club you wanted to join!"

Henry was surprised. "Of course I am. Why do you ask that question?"

"Because you are a rich man, and this is the home of modesty."

Henry reached over and shook hands with him. "I like that," said he, "and let me assure you that you have in one sentence made me feel that I really belong here, not because I am particularly modest, but because your sentiments are my own. I am not a rich man, but even if I were I should prefer this group to the hyphenated"—

"Fools," McGlenn suggested.

"Yes," Henry agreed, "the hyphenated fools that I am compelled to meet. George Witherspoon is a rich man, but his money does not belong to me. I didn't help him earn any of it; I borrowed money from him, and, so soon as I can, I shall return it with interest."

"John," said Richmond, "you were wrong—as you usually are—in asking Mr. Witherspoon that question, but in view of the fact that you enabled him to put himself so agreeably on record, we will excuse your lack of courtesy."

"I don't permit any man who goes fishing with any sort of ignorant lout, and who spends a whole day in a boat with him, to tell me when I am lacking in courtesy."

Richmond laughed, put his hand to his mouth, threw back his head and replied: "I go fishing, not for society, but for amusement; and, by the way, I think it would do you good to go fishing, even with an ignorant lout. You might learn something."

"Ah," McGlenn rejoined, "you have disclosed the source of much of your information. You learn from the ignorant that you may confound the wise."

Richmond put his hand to his mouth. "At some playful time," said he, "I might seek to confound the wise, but I should never so far forget myself as to make an experiment on you."

"Mr. Witherspoon," remarked McGlenn, "we will turn from this rude barbarian and give our attention to Mr. Whittlesy, who knows all about dogs."

"If he knows all about dogs," Henry replied, "he must be well acquainted with some of the most prominent traits of man."

"I am not talking much to-day," said Whittlesy, ducking his head. "I went fooling round the Board of Trade yesterday; and they got me, and they got me good."

"How much did they catch you for, Whit?" McGlenn asked.

"I won't say, but they got me, and got me good, but never mind. Ill go after 'em."

The man who had been asleep on the leather lounge got up, stretched himself, looked about for a moment, and then, coming over to the group, said: "What's all this bloody rot?" Seeing a stranger, he added, by way of apology: "I thought this was the regular roasting lay-out."

"Mr. Witherspoon," said Richmond, "let me introduce Mr. Mortimer, an old member of the club;" and when the introduction had been acknowledged, Richmond added: "Mortimer has just thought of something mean to say and has come over to say it. He dozes himself full of venom and then has to get rid of it."

"Our friend Richmond is about as truthful as he is complimentary," Mortimer replied.

"Yes," said Richmond, "but if I were no more complimentary than you are truthful, I should have a slam for everybody."

"Oh, ho, ho, no," McGlenn cried, and Richmond shouted: "Oh, I have been robbed."

Henry looked about for the cause of this commotion and saw a smiling man, portly and impressive, coming toward them with a dignified mince in his walk. And Mr. Flummers was introduced with half-humorous ceremony. He had rather a pleasant expression of countenance, and men who were well acquainted with him said that he had, though not so long of arm, an extensive reach for whisky. He was of impressive size, with a sort of Napoleonic head; and when hot on the trail of a drink, his voice held a most unctuous solicitude. He was exceedingly annoying to some people and was a source of constant delight to others. At one time he had formed the habit of being robbed, and later on he was drugged; but no one could conjecture what he would next add to his repertory. His troubles were amusing, his difficulties were humorous, his failures were laughable, and his sorrows were the cause for jest. He had a growing paunch, and when he stood he leaned back slightly as though his rotund front found ease in exhibition. As a law student he had aimed a severe blow at justice, and failing as an attorney, he had served his country a good turn. As a reporter he wrote with a torch, and wrote well. All his utterances were declamatory; and he had a set of scallopy gestures that were far beyond the successful mimicry of his fellows. The less he thought the more wisely he talked. Meditation hampered him, and like a rabbit, he was generally at his best when he first "jumped up."

He shook hands with Henry, looked at him a moment and asked: "Are you going to run a newspaper with all those old geysers you've got over there?"

The new member winced.

"Don't pay any attention to Flummers," John Richmond said.

"Oh, yes," Flummers insisted. "You see, I know all those fellows. Some of them were worn out ten years ago—but say, are you paying anything over there?"

"Yes, paying as much as any paper in the town."

"That's the stuff; but say, you can afford it. Who rang the bell? Did anybody ring? Boy," (speaking to a waiter), "we ought to have something to drink here."

"Do you want to pay for it?" Richmond asked.

"Oh, ho, ho, no, I'm busted. I've set 'em up two or three times to-day."

"Why, you stuffed buffalo robe, you"—

"Oh, well, it was the other day, then. I'm all the time buying the drinks. If it weren't for me you geysers would dry up. Say, John, touch the bell."

"Wait," said Henry. "Have something with me."

"Ah, now you command the respect of the commonwealth!" Flummers cried. "By one heroic act you prove that your life is not a failure. These fellows round here make me tired. Boy, bring me a little whisky. What are you fellows going to take? What! you want a cigar?" he added, speaking to Henry.

"Oh, I had a great man on my staff yesterday—big railroad man. Do you know that some of those fellows like to have a man show them how to spend their money? I see I'm posted for dues. This municipality must think I'm made of money."

When he caught sight of the boy coming with the tray, a peculiar light, such as painters give the face of Hope, illumined his countenance, and clasping his hands, he unctuously greeted himself.

"Mr. Flummers," said McGlenn, "we all love you."

"Oh, no."

"Yes; it is disreputable, but we love you. It was a long time before I discovered your beauties. I used to think that the men who loved you were the enemies of a higher grade of life, and perhaps they were, but I love you. You are a great man, Mr. Flummers. Nature designed you to be the president of a life insurance company."

"Well, say, I know that."

"Yes," continued McGlenn. "A life insurance company ought to employ you as a great joss, and charge people for the privilege of a mere glimpse of you."

"I shouldn't think," said Richmond, "that a man who had committed murder in Nebraska would be so extreme as to pose as the president of a life insurance company."

"Mr. Hammers, did you commit a murder in Nebraska?" McGlenn asked.

"Oh, no."

"But didn't you confess that you killed a man there?" Richmond urged.

"Oh, well, that was a mistake."

"What? The confession?"

"No, the killing. You see, I was out of work, and I struck a doctor for a job in his drug-store; and once, when the doctor was away, an old fellow sent over to have a prescription filled, and I filled it. And when the doctor returned he saw the funeral procession going past the store. He asked me what it meant, and I told him."

"Then what did he say?"

"He asked me if I got pay for the prescription. Oh, but he was a thrifty man!" Flummers clasped his hands, threw himself back and laughed with a jolting "he, he, he." "Well, I've got to go. Did anybody ring? Say, John"—to Richmond—"why don't you buy something?"

"What? Oh, you gulp, you succession of swallows, you human sink-hole! Flummers, I have bought you whisky enough to overflow the Mississippi."

"Oh, ho, ho, but not to-day, John. Past whisky is a scandal; in present whisky there lies a virtue. Never tell a man what you have done, John, lest he may think you boastful, but show him what you will do now, so that he may have the proof of your ability. Is it possible that I've got to shake you fellows? My time is too valuable to waste even with a mere contemplation of your riotous living."

He walked away with his mincing step. "There's a character," said Henry, looking after him. "He is positively restful."

"Until he wants a drink," Mortimer replied, "and then he is restless. Well, I must follow his example of withdrawal, if not his precept of appetite. I am pleased to have met you, Mr. Witherspoon, and I hope to see you often."

"I think you shall, as I intend to make this my resting-place."

"There is another character," said McGlenn, referring to Mortimer. "He is a very learned man, so much so that he has no need of imagination. He is a very learned man."

"And he is charmed with the prospect of saying a mean thing," Richmond replied. "I tell him so," he added, "though that is needless, for he knows it himself. His mind has traveled over a large scope of intellectual territory, and he commands my respect while I object to his methods."

The conversation took a serious turn, and Richmond flooded it with his learning. His voice was low and his manner modest—a great man who in the game of human affairs played below the limit of his abilities. McGlenn roused himself. When emphatic, he had a way of turning out his thumb and slowly hammering his knee with his fist. In his sky there was a cloud of pessimism, but the brightness of his speech threw a rainbow across it. He was a poet in the garb of a Diogenes. Many of his theories were wrong, but all were striking. Sometimes his sentences flashed like a scythe swinging in the sunshine.

Henry talked as he had never found occasion to talk before. These men inspired him, and in acknowledgment of this he said: "We may for years carry in our minds a sort of mist that we cannot shape into an idea. Suddenly we meet a man, and he speaks the word of life unto that mist, and instantly it becomes a thought."

Other members joined the group, and the conversation broke and flew into sharp fragments. McGlenn and Richmond began to wrangle.

"Your children may not read my books," said McGlenn, replying to some assertion that Richmond had made, "but your great-grandchildren will."

"Oh, that's possible," Richmond rejoined. "I can defend my immediate offspring, while my descendants may be left without protection. If you would tear the didacticism out of your books and inject a little more of the juice of human interest—hold on!" Richmond threw up his arm, as though warding off a blow. "When that double line comes between his eyes I always feel that he is going to hit me."

"I wouldn't hit you. I have some pity left."

"Or fear—which is it?"

"Not fear; pity."

"Why don't you reserve some of it for your readers?"

McGlenn frowned. "I don't expect you to like my books."

"Oh, you have realized the fact that the characters are wooden?"

"No, but I have realized that they are beyond your feeble grasp. I don't want you to like my books." He hammered his knee. "The book that wins your regard is an exceedingly bad production. When you search for facts you may sometimes go to high sources, but when you read fiction you go to the dogs. A consistent character in fiction is beyond you."

"There are no consistent characters in life," said Richmond, "and a consistent character in fiction is merely a strained form of art. In life the most arrant coward will sometimes fight; the bravest man at times lacks nerve; the generous man may sometimes show the spirit of the niggard. But your character in fiction is different. He must be always brave, or always generous, or always niggardly. He must be consistent, and consistency is not life."

"But inconsistency is life, and you are, therefore, not dead," McGlenn replied. "If inconsistency were a jewel," he added, "you would be a cluster of brilliants. As it is, you are an intellectual fault-finder and a physical hypochondriac."

"And you are an intellectual cartoon and a physical mistake."

"I won't talk to you. Even the semblance of a gentleman commands my respect, but I can't respect you. I like truth, but"—

"Is that the reason you seek me?"

"No, it is the reason I avoid you. Brutal prejudice never held a truth."

"Not when it shook hands with you," Richmond replied.

McGlenn got up, walked over to the piano, came back, looked at his watch, and addressing Richmond, asked:

"Are you going home, John?"

"Yes, John. Suppose we walk."

"I'll go you; come on."

They bade Henry good evening and together walked off affectionately.

"What do you think of our new friend?" Richmond asked as they strolled along.

"John, he has suffered. He is a great man."

"I don't know how he may turn out," Richmond said, "but I rather like him. Of course he hasn't fitted himself to his position—that is, he doesn't as yet feel the force of old Witherspoon's money. His experience has gone far toward making a man of him, but his changed condition may after a while throw his past struggles into contempt and thereby corrode his manliness."

"I don't think that he scraped up his principles from the Witherspoon side of the house," McGlenn declared. "If he had, we should at once have discovered in him the unmistakable trace of the hog. Oh, I don't think he will stay in the club very long. His tendency will be to drift away. All rich men are the enemies of democracy. If they pretend that they are not, they are hypocrites; if they believe they are not, it is because they haven't come to a correct understanding of themselves. The meanest difference that can exist between men is the difference that money makes. There is some compassion in an intellectual difference, and even in a difference of birth there is some little atonement to be expected, but a moneyed difference is stiff with unyielding brutality."

In this opinion they struck a sort of agreement, but they soon fell apart, and they wrangled until they reached a place where their pathway split. They halted for a moment; they had been fierce in argument. Now they were calm.

"Can't you come over to-night, John?" McGlenn asked.

"No, I can't possibly come to-night, John. I've got a piece of work on hand and must get it off. I've neglected it too long already."

But he did go over that night, and he wrangled with McGlenn until twelve o'clock.

CHAPTER XIII.

BUTTING AGAINST A WALL.

When we have become familiar with an environment we sometimes wonder why at any time it should have appeared strange to us; and it was thus with Henry as the months moved along. The mansion in Prairie Avenue was now home-like to him, and the contrasts which its luxurious belongings were wont to summon were now less sharp and were dismissed with a growing easiness. Feeling the force which position urges, he worked without worry, and conscious of a certain ability, he did not question the success of his plans. But how much of the future did he intend these plans to cover? He turned from this troublesome uncertainty and found satisfaction in that state of mind which permits one day to forecast the day which is to follow, and on a futurity stretching further than this he resolutely turned his back. In his work and in his rest at the Press Club, whither he went every afternoon, he found his keenest pleasure. He was also fond of the theater, not to sit with a box party, but to loiter with Richmond—to enjoy the natural, to growl at the tame, and to leave the place whenever a tiresome dialogue came on. Ellen sometimes drew him into society, and on Sundays he usually went with Mrs. Witherspoon to a Congregational church where a preacher who had taught his countenance the artifice of a severe solemnity denounced the money-chasing spirit of the age at about double the price that he had received in the East.

The Witherspoons had much company and they entertained generously, though not with a showy lavishness, for the old man had a quick eye for the appearance of waste. It was noticeable, too, that since Henry came young women who were counted as Ellen's friends were more frequent with their visits. Witherspoon rarely laughed at anything, but he laughed at this. His wife, however, discovered in it no cause for mirth. A mother may plan the marriage of her daughter, for that is romantic, but she looks with an anxious eye upon the marriage of her son, for that is serious.

One evening, when Witherspoon and Henry had gone into the library to smoke, the merchant remarked: "I want, to talk to you about the course of your paper."

"All right, sir."

The merchant stood on the hearth-rug. He lighted his cigar, turned it round and round, and then said:

"Brooks called my attention this afternoon to an article on working girls. Does it meet with your approval?"

"Why, yes. It was a special assignment, and I gave it out."

"Hum!" Witherspoon grunted. He sat down in his leather-covered chair, crossed his legs, struck a match on the sole of his slipper, relighted his cigar, which he had suffered to go out, and for a time smoked in silence.

"Is there anything wrong about it?" Henry asked.

"I might ask you if there is anything right about it," Witherspoon replied. "'The poor ye have with you always,' was uttered by the Son of God. It was not only a prophecy, but a truth for all ages. There are grades in life, and who made them? Man. Ah, but who made man? God. Then who is responsible for the grades? Nature sets the example of inequality. One tree is higher than another." His cigar had gone out. He lighted it again and continued: "Writers who seek to benefit the poor of ten injure them—teach them a dissatisfaction which in its tarn brings a sort of reprisal on the part of capital."

"I don't agree with you," said Henry.

"Of course not."

"I have cause to know that you are wrong, sir."

"You think you have," the merchant replied.

"It is true," Henry admitted, "that we shall always have the poor with us."

"I thought so," said Witherspoon.

"But it is not true that an attempt to aid them is harmful. Their condition has steadily improved since history "—

"You are a sentimentalist."

"I am more than that," said Henry. "I am a man."

"Hum! And are you more than that?"

"How could I be more?"

"Easily enough. You could be an anarchist."

"And is that a step higher?"

"Wolves think so."

"But I don't"

"I hope not."

They sat in silence. The young man was angry, but he controlled himself.

"It is easy to scatter dangerous words in this town," said the merchant. "And, sir,"—he broke off, rousing himself,—"look at the inconsistency, the ridiculousness of your position. I employ more than a thousand people; my son says that I oppress them. I"—

"Hold on; I didn't say that. I don't know of any injustice that you inflict upon your employés; but I do know of such wrongs committed by other men. But you have shown me that the condition of those creatures is hopeless."

"What creatures?"

"Women who work for a living."

"And do you know the cause of their hopelessness?"

"Yes; poverty and oppression."

"Ah, but what is the cause of their poverty?"

"The greed of man."

"Oh, no; the appetite of man—whisky. Nine out of ten of those so-called wretched creatures can trace their wretchedness to drink."

"But it is not their fault."

"Oh!"

Henry was stunned. He saw what a wall he was butting against. "And is this to go on forever?" he asked.

"Yes, forever. 'The poor ye have with you always.'"

"But present conditions may be overturned."

"Possibly, but other conditions just as bad, or even worse, will build on the ruins. That is the history you spoke of just now."

"But slavery was swept away—and, let me affirm," he suddenly broke off, "that the condition of the poorer people in this town is worse than the slavery that existed in the South. From that slavery the government pointed toward freedom, and mill-owners in the North applauded—men, too, mind you, who were the hardest of masters. I can bring up now the picture of a green lane. I can see an old negro woman sweeping the door-yard of her cabin, and she sings a song. Her husband is at work in the field, and her happy children are fishing in the bayou. That is the freedom which the government pointed out—the freedom which a God-inspired Lincoln proclaimed. But do you hear any glad songs among the slaves in the North? Let me tell you, sir, that we are confronted with a problem that is more serious than that which was solved by Lincoln."

Witherspoon looked at him as though he could think of no reply. At one moment he seemed to be filling up with the gathering impulses of anger; at another he appeared to be humiliated.

"Are you my son?" he asked.

"Presumably. An impostor would yield to your demands; he would win your confidence that he might steal your money."

"Yes," said the merchant, and he sat in silence.

Henry was the first to speak. "If you were poor, and with the same intelligence you have now, what would you advise the poor man to do?"

"I should advise him to do as I did when I was poor and as I do now—work. Now, let me tell you something: Last year your mother and I gave away a great deal of money—we do so every year. Does that look as if I am grinding the poor? You have hurt me."

"I am sorry. But if I have hurt you with a truth, it should make you think."

Witherspoon looked at him, and this time it was with resentment. "What! you talk about making me think? Young man, you don't know what it is to think. You are confounded with the difference between sentimentalism and thought. You go ahead and print your newspaper and don't worry about the workingwoman. Her class will be larger and worse off, probably, a hundred years after you are dead."

"Yes, but before that time her class may rise up and sweep everything before it. A democracy can't long permit a few men to hold all the wealth. But there's no good to come from a discussion with you."

"You are right," said Witherspoon, "but hold on a moment. Don't go away believing that I have no sympathy for the poor. I have, but I haven't time to worry with it. There is no reason why any man should be poor in this country."

Henry thought of a hundred things to say, but said nothing. He knew that it was useless; he knew that this man's strength had blinded him to the weakness of other men, and he felt that American aristocracy was the most grinding of all aristocracies, for the reason that a man's failure to reach its grade was attributable to himself alone.

CHAPTER XIV.

A DIFFERENT HANDWRITING.

Henry bade Witherspoon good night and went to his room. A fire was burning in the grate. At the window there was a rattle of sleet. He lighted his old briar-root pipe and sat down. He had, as usual, ceased to argue with himself; he simply mused. He acknowledged his weakness, and sought a counteracting strength, but found none. But why should he fight against good fortune? It was not his fault that certain conditions existed. Why not starve the past and feed the present? But he had begun to argue, and he shook himself as though he would be freed from something that had taken hold of him, and he got up and stood at the window. How raw the night! And as he stood there, he fancied that the darkness and the sleet of his boyhood were trying to force their way into the warmth and the light of his new inheritance. He turned suddenly about, and bowing with mock politeness, said to himself: "You are a fool." He lighted his pipe afresh, and sat down to work. Some one tapped at the door. Was it Witherspoon come to deliver another argument, and to decide again in his own favor? No, it was Ellen. She had been at the theater.

"You bring roses out of the storm," said Henry, in allusion to the color of her cheeks.

"But I don't bring flattery. Gracious! I am chilled through." She took off her gloves and held her hands over the grate. "Everybody's gone to bed, and I didn't know but you might be here, scribbling. Goodness, what's that you've been smoking?"

"A pipe."

She turned from the fire and shrugged her shoulders. "Couldn't you get a cigar? Why do you smoke that awful thing?"

"It is an altar of the past, and on it I burn the memories of its day," he answered, smiling.

"Well, I think I would get a new altar and burn incense for the present! Oh, but I've had the stupidest evening."

"Wasn't the play good?"

"No, it was talk, talk, with a stress laid on nothing. And then my escort wasn't particularly entertaining."

"Who?"

"Oh, a Mr. Somebody. What have you been doing all the evening?"

"Something that I found to be worse than useless. Father and I have been locking horns over the—not exactly the labor question, but over the wretchedness of working-women."

"What do you know about the wretchedness of working-women?" she asked.

"What do I know about it? What can I help knowing about it? How can I shut my eyes against it?"

"I don't see why they are so very wretched. They get pay, I'm sure. Somebody has to work; somebody has to be poor. What are you writing?"

"The necessary rot of an editorial page." he answered.

"Why, how your handwriting has changed," she said, leaning over the table.

"How so?"

"Why, this is so different from the letters you wrote before you came home."

He did not reply immediately; he was thinking. "Pens in that country cut queer capers," he said. "Where are those letters, anyway?"

"Mother has put them away somewhere."

"I should like to see them again."

"Why?"

"Oh, on account of the memories they hold. Get them for me, and I will give you a description of my surroundings at the time I wrote them."

"Why, what a funny fellow you are! Can't you give me a description anyway?"

"No, not a good one."

"But I don't want to wake mother, and I don't know that I can find the letters."

"Go and see."

"Oh, you are so headstrong."

She went out, and he walked up and down the room, and then stood again at the window. Ellen returned.

"Here they are."

"Did you wake mother?"

"No, but I committed burglary. I found the key and unlocked her trunk, and all to please you."

"Good, and for the first time burglary shall be repaid with gratitude."

He took the letters and looked at the sprawling characters drawn by the hand of his friend. "When I copied this confession," said he, "I was heavy of heart. I was sitting in a small room, looking far down into a valley where nature seemed to keep her darkness stored, and from, another window, in the east, I could see a mountain where she made her light."

"Go on," she said, leaning with her elbows on the table.

He began to walk across the room, from the door to the grate, and to talk as one delivering a set oration. "And I had just finished my work when a most annoying monkey, owned by the landlord, jumped through the window. I was so startled that I threw the folded papers at him"—

"What have you done!" she cried.

He had thrown the letters into the fire, he sprang forward, and snatching them, threw them on the hearth and stamped out the blaze.

"Oh, I do wish you hadn't done that," she said, hoarse with alarm. "Mother reads these letters every day, and—oh, I do wish you hadn't done it! They are all scorched—ruined, and I wouldn't have her know that I took them out of her trunk for anything. What shall we do about it? Oh, I know you didn't mean to do it." He had looked appealingly at her. "I wish I hadn't got them."

"It is only the copy of the confession that is badly burned. The original is here on the table," he said.

"I know, but what good will that do? The letters are so scorched that it won't do to return them."

"But I can copy them," he replied.

"Oh, you genius!" she exclaimed, clapping her hands.

"Thank you," he said, bowing. Then he added: "Let me see—this paper won't do. Where can we get some fool's-cap?"

"There must be some in the library," she answered. "I'll slip down and see."

She hastened down-stairs and soon returned with the paper. "I feel like a burglar," she said.

"And I am a forger," he replied.

"Won't take you long, will it?"

"No."

The work was soon completed. The scorched letters were thrown into the fire. "She will never know the difference," said Ellen. "It is a sin to deceive her, but then, following the burglary, deception is a kindness; and there can't be so very much wickedness in a sin that keeps one from being unhappy."

"Or keeps one from being discovered," he suggested. She laughed, not mirthfully, but with an attempt at self-consolation. "This is our first secret," she said, as she opened the door.

"And I think you will keep it," he replied, smiling at her.

She looked at him for a moment and rejoined: "Indeed, fellow-criminal! And if you didn't smoke that horrid pipe, what a lovable convict you would make."

When she was gone he stood again at the window. The night was breathing hard. He spoke to himself with mock concern: "Two hours ago you were simply a fool, but now you are a scoundrel."

CHAPTER XV.

TOLD HIM HER STORY.

When he awoke the next morning his blood seemed to be clogged somewhere far from the seat of thought, and then it came with a leap that brought back the night before. "But I won't argue with you," he said, turning over. "Argue," he repeated. "Why, it's past argument now. I will simply do the best I can and let the worst take care of itself. But I do despise a vacillator, and I am one. The old man maybe right. Nature admires strength and never pities the weak. And what am I to do if I'm not to carry out my part of this programme? The trial is over," he said as he got up. "I am Henry Witherspoon."

He was busy in his room at the office when Brooks entered.

"Well, hard at it, I see."

"Yes. Sit down; I'll be through with this in a moment."

He sat himself back from the desk, and Brooks asked, "Can't you go out to lunch with me?"

"Isn't time yet."

"Hardly, that's so," Brooks admitted, looking at his watch. "I happened to have business in this neighborhood and thought I'd drop in. Say," he added in a lower tone, and nodding his head toward the door of the adjoining room, "who is she?"

"The literary reviewer."

"She's a stunner. What's her name?"

"Miss Drury."

"You might introduce me."

"She's busy."

"Probably she'd go to lunch with us."

"She refuses to go out with any one."

"Hasn't been here long, eh?" That was the floorwalker's idea. "Well, I must get back, if you can't go with me. So long."

Henry took a book into Miss Drury's room. "Here's something that was sent to me personally," said he, "but treat it as you think it deserves."

She looked up with a suggestion of a smile. "Are you willing to trust the reputation of your friends to me?" she asked.

"I am at least willing to let you take charge of their vanity."

"Oh, am I so good a keeper of vanity?"

"No, you are so gentle an exterminator of it."

"Thank you," she said, laughing. Her hair seemed ready to break from its fastenings, and she gave it those deft touches of security which are mysterious to man, but which a little girl practices on a doll.

"You have wonderful hair," he said.

And she answered: "I'm going to cut it off."

This is woman's almost invariable reply to such a compliment. Henry knew that she would say it, and she knew that she would not cut it off, and they both laughed.

"How did you happen to get into newspaper work?" he asked.

Her face became serious. "I had to do something," she answered, "and I couldn't do anything else. My mother was an invalid for ten years, and I nursed her, read to her day and night. Sometimes in the winter she couldn't sleep, and I would get up and amuse her by writing reviews of the books I had read. It was only play, but after she was dead I thought that I might make it earnest."

"And your father died when you were very young, I suppose."

She looked away, and with both hands she began to touch her hair again. "Yes," she said.

"Tell me about him."

"Why about him?"

"I don't know. Because you have told me about your mother, I suppose."

"And are you so much interested in me?" she asked, looking earnestly at him.

"Yes."

"I ought not to tell you, but I will. We lived in the country. My father was"—She looked about her and then at him. "My father was a drunkard, but my mother loved him devotedly. One day he went to the village, several miles away, and at evening he didn't come home, and my mother knew the cause. It was a cold, snowy night. Mother stood at the gate, holding a lantern. She wouldn't let me stand there with her, it was so cold, but I was on my knees in a chair at the window, and I could see her. She stood there so long, and it seemed so cruel that I should be in a warm room while she was out in the cold, that I slipped out and closed the door softly after me. I stood a short distance behind her, and I had not been standing there long when a horse, covered with snow, came stumbling out of the darkness. Mother called me, and I ran to her. We went down the road, holding the lantern first one side, then the other, that we might see into the corners of the fences. We found him lying dead in the road, covered with snow. Mother was never well after that night—but really I am neglecting my work."

He returned to his desk. The proof-sheets of a leading article were brought to him, but he sat gazing at naught that he could see.

"Are you done with those proofs?" some one asked.

"Take them away," he said, without looking up. He sat for a long time, musing, and then he shook himself, a habit which he had lately formed in trying to free himself from meditations that sought to possess him.

He went out to luncheon, and just as he was going into a restaurant some one spoke to him. It was old man Colton.

"My dear Mr. Witherspoon," said the old man, "come and have a bite to eat with me. Ah, come on, now; no excuse. Let's go this way. I know of a place that will just suit you. This way. I'm no hand for clubs—they bore me; they are newfangled."

The old man conducted him into a basement restaurant not noticeable for cleanliness, but strong with a smell of mutton.

"Now, suppose we try a little broth," said the old man, when they had sat down. "Two bowls of mutton broth," he added, speaking to the waiter. "Ah," he went on, "you may talk about your dishes, but at noontime there is nothing that can touch broth. And besides," he added, in a whisper, "there's no robbery in broth. These restaurant fellows are skinners of the worst order. I'll tell you, my dear Mr. Witherspoon, everything teaches us to practice economy. We must do it; it's the saving clause of life. Now, what could be better than this? Go back to work, and your head's clear. My dear Mr. Witherspoon, if I had been a spendthrift, I should not only be a pauper—I should have been dead long ago."

He continued to talk on the virtues of economy. "Won't you have some more broth?"

"No, thank you."

"Won't you have something else?" he asked, in a tone that implied extreme fear.

"No, I'm not hungry to-day."

This announcement appeared greatly to relieve the old man. "Oh, you'll succeed in life, my dear young man; but really you ought to come into the store with us. It would do your father so much good; he would feel that he has a sure hold on the future, you understand. You don't know what a comfort Brooks is to me. Why, if my daughter had married a man in any other line, I—well, it would have been a great disappointment. Are you going back to work now?"

"No; to the Press Club."

"Why don't you come to see us oftener?"

"Oh, I'm there often enough, I should think—two or three times a week."

"Yes, of course, but we are all so anxious that you should become interested in our work. Don't discourage yourself with the belief that a man brought up in the South is not a good business man. I am from the South, my dear Mr. Witherspoon."

They had reached the sidewalk, and the roar from the street impelled the old man to force his squeaky voice into a split shout.

"Southern man"—He was bumped off by the passing throng, but he got back again and shouted: "Southern man has just as good commercial ability as anybody. Well, I must leave you here."

CHAPTER XVI.

AN AROUSER OF THE SLEEPY.

In the Press Club Henry found Mr. Flummers haranguing a party of men who sat about the round table. He stood that he might have room in which to scallop his gestures, and he had reached a climax just as Henry joined the circle. He waited until all interruptions had ceased and then continued: "Milwaukee was asleep, and I was sent up there to arouse it. But I shook it too hard; I hadn't correctly measured my own strength. The old-timers said, 'Let us doze,' but I commanded, 'Wake up here now, and get a move on you,' and they had to wake up. But they formulated a conspiracy against me, and I was removed."

"How were you removed, Mr. Flummers?" McGlenn asked.

"Oh, a petition, signed by a thousand sleepy citizens, was sent down here to my managing editor, and I was requested to come away. Thus was my Milwaukee career ended, but it ended in a blaze that dazzled the eyes of the old-timers." He cut a scallop. "But papa was not long idle. The solid South wanted him. They knew that papa was the man to quiet a disturbance or compel a drowsy municipality to get up and rub its eyes. Well, I went to Memphis. What was the cause of the great excitement that followed?" He tapped his forehead. "Papa's nut. But again had he underestimated himself; again was he too strong for the occasion. He tossed up the community in his little blanket, and while it was still in the air, papa skipped, and the railroad train didn't go any too fast for him."

"And was that the time you went over into Arkansas and murdered a man?" Richmond asked.

"Oh, no; you are mixing ancient history with recent events. But say, John, you haven't bought anything to-day."

"Why, you paunch-bulging liar, I bought you a drink not more than ten minutes ago."

"But you owed me that one."

"Get out, you nerveless beef! Under the old law for debt I could put you in prison for life."

"Oh, no."

"Do you really need a drink, Mr. Flummers?" McGlenn asked.

"Yes."

"And you don't think that there is any mistake about it?"

"No."

"Well, then, as one who has been compelled to love you, I will buy you a drink."

"Good stuff. Say, Whit, touch the bell over there, will you?"

"Touch it yourself, you lout!"

With a profane avowal that he had never struck so lazy a party, Flummers rang the bell, and when the boy appeared, he called with hearty hospitality: "See what the gentlemen will have."

"Would you like something more?" Henry asked of Flummers, when the drinks had been served.

"Oh, I've just had one. But wait a minute. Say, boy, bring me a cigar."

When the cigar was brought, Flummers said, "That's the stuff!" and a moment later he broke out with, "Say, Witherspoon, why don't you kill the geyser that does the county building for your paper?"

"Why so?"

"Oh, he flashes his star and calls himself a journalist. What time is it? I must hustle; can't stay here and throw away time on you fellows. Say, John"—

Richmond shut him off with: "Don't call me John. A man—I'll say man out of courtesy to your outward form—a man that hasn't sense enough to lift a bass into a boat is not to be permitted such a familiarity. Out in a boat with him last summer and caught a big bass," Richmond explained to the company, "and brought it up to the side of the boat and told Flummers to lift it in, not thinking at the time that he hadn't sense enough, and he grabbed hold of the line and let the fish get away. It made me sick, and I had a strong fight with myself to keep from drowning him."

Flummers tapped his forehead. "Papa's nut says, 'Keep your hand out of a fish's mouth.' Oh, I don't want to go fishing with you again. No fun for me to pull a boat and see a man thrash the water. Say, did I take anything on you just now?" he suddenly broke off, addressing Henry.

"Yes, but you can have something else."

"Well, not now. I'll hold it in reserve. In this life it is well to have reserve forces stationed here and there. Who's got a car-ticket? I've got to go over on the West Side. What, are you all broke? What sort of a poverty-stricken gang have I struck? Well, I've given you as much of my valuable time as I can spare."

"I suppose you are getting used to this town," said Mortimer, when Flummers was gone.

"Yes, I am gradually making myself feel at home," Henry answered.

"You find the weather disagreeable, of course. We do, I know."

"I think that Chicago is great in spite of its climate," said Henry.

"If great at all, it is great in spite of a great many absences," McGlenn replied; "and in these absences it is mean and contemptible. To money it gives worship; to the song and dance man it pays admiring attention, but to the writer it gives neglect—the campaign of silence."

Richmond put his hand to his month and threw his head back. "The trouble with you, John"—

"There's no trouble with me."

"Yes, there is, and it is the trouble that comes to all men who form an estimate without having first taken the trouble to think."

"Gentlemen," said McGlenn, "I wish to call your attention to that remark. John Richmond advising people to think before they form their estimates. John, you are the last man to think before you form an estimate. Within a minute after you meet a man you are prepared to give your estimate of his character; you'll give a half-hour's opinion on a minute's acquaintance."

"Some people can't form an opinion of a man after a year's acquaintance with him, but I can. I go by a certain instinct, and when the wrong sort of man rubs up against me I know it. I don't need to wait until he has worked me before I find out that he is an impostor. But, as I was going to say, the trouble with you is that you forget the difference that exists between new and old cities. A new community worships material things; and if it pays tribute to an idea, it must be that idea which appeals quickest to the eye—to the commoner senses. And in this Chicago is no worse than other raw cities. Fifty years from now "—

"Who wants to live fifty years in this miserable world?" McGlenn broke in. "There is but one community in which the writer is at ease, and that is the community of death. It is populous; it is crowded with writers, but it holds an easy place for every one. The silence of that community frightens the rich but its democracy pleases the poor."

"I suppose, then, that you want to die."

"I do."

"But you didn't want to die yesterday?"

"Yes, it was the very time when I should have died—I had just eaten a good dinner. You don't know how to eat, John. You stuff yourself, John. Yes, you stuff yourself and think that you have dined. The reason is that you have never taken the trouble to become civilized. It's my misfortune to have friends who can't eat. But some of my friends can eat, and they are therefore great men. Tod Cowles strikes a new dish at a house on the North Side and softens his voice and says, 'Ah hah.' He is a great man, for he knows that he has discovered an additional pleasure to offset another trouble of this infamous life; and Colonel Norton is a great man—he knows how to eat; but you, John, are an outcast from the table, and therefore civilization cannot reach you. Civilization comes to the feast and asks, 'Where is John Richmond, whom I heard some of you say something about?' and we reply, 'He holds us in contempt,' and Civilization pronounces these solemn words: 'He who holds ye in contempt, the same will I banish.'"

"But," rejoined Richmond, "civilization teaches one of two things—to think or to become a glutton. Somehow I was kept away from the feast and had to accept the other teaching. I don't go about deifying my stomach and making an apostle of the palate of my month. When I eat"—

"But you don't eat; you stuff. I have sat down to a table with you, and after giving your order you would fill yourself so full of bread and pickles or anything within reach that you couldn't eat anything when the order was brought."

"That was abstraction of thought instead of hunger," Richmond replied.

"No, it was the presence of gluttony. Can you eat, Mr. Witherspoon?"

"I fear that I must confess a lack of higher civilization. I am not well schooled in anything, and I suppose that you must class me with Richmond—as a barbarian. I lack"—

"Art," McGlenn suggested. "But for you there is a chance. John Richmond is hopelessly gone."

"I sometimes feed my dogs on stewed tripe," said Whittlesy, "and the good that it does them teaches me that man is to be judged largely by what he eats."

"There is absolutely no use for all this bloody rot," Mortimer declared. "Eating is essential, of course, but I don't see how men can talk for an hour on the subject, and talk foolishly, at that."

"If eating is essential," Richmond replied, "it is a wonder that you don't kick against it."

"Ah, but isn't it a good thing that I don't kick against non-essentials? Wouldn't I be obliged to kick against this assemblage and its beastly rot?"

Mortimer sometimes emphasized his walk with a peculiar springiness of step, and with this emphasis he walked off, biting the stem of his pipe.

"I thought that by this time you would begin to show a weariness of the Press Club," McGlenn said to Henry.

"I don't see why you should have thought that. I said at first that I was one of you."

"Yes, but I didn't know but by this time you might have discovered your mistake."

"I made no mistake, and therefore could discover none. Let me tell you that between George Witherspoon's class and me there is but little affinity. You may call me a crank, and perhaps I am, but I was poor so long that I felt a sort of pride in the fight I was compelled to make. Poverty has its arrogance, and foppery is sometimes found in rags. I don't mind telling you that I have been strongly urged to take what is called my place in the world; but that place is so distasteful to me that I look on it with a shudder. I despise barter—I am compelled to buy, but I am not forced to sell. I am not a sentimentalist—if I were I should attempt to write poetry. I am not a philosopher—if I were I shouldn't attempt to run a newspaper. I am simply an ordinary man who has passed through an extraordinary school. And what I think are virtues may be errors."

McGlenn replied: "John is your friend. John thinks that you are a strong man—I don't know yet, but I do know that you please me when you are silent and that you don't displease me when you talk. You are strong enough to say, 'I don't know,' and a confession of ignorance is a step toward wisdom. Ask John a question to-day and he may say, 'I don't know,' but to-morrow he does know—he has spent a night with it. You are a remarkable man, Mr. Witherspoon," he added after a moment's reflection, "a very remarkable man. Your life up to a short time ago, you say, was a struggle; your uncle was a poor man. Suddenly you became the son of a millionaire. A weak nature would straightway have assumed the airs of a rich man; you remained a democrat. It was so remarkable that I thought the decision might react as an error, and therefore I asked if you had not begun to grow weary of this democracy, the Press Club."

McGlenn smiled, and his smile had two meanings, one for his friends and another for his enemies. His friends saw a thoughtful countenance illumined by an intellectual light; his enemies recognized a sarcasm that had escaped from a sly and revengeful spirit. But Henry was his friend.

"John," said Richmond, "you think"—

McGlenn turned out his thumb and began to motion with his fist. "I won't submit to the narrow dictum of a man who presumes to tell me what I think."

"But if nobody were to tell you, how would you find out what you think? Oh," he added, "I admit that it was presumption on my part. I was presuming that you think."

"I do think, and if some one must tell me what I think, let him be a thinking man."

"John, you cry out for thought, and are the first to strike at it with your dogmatism. You don't think—you dogmatize."

McGlenn turned to Henry. "I had two delightful days last week. John Richmond was out of town."

"Yes," said Richmond, putting his feet on a chair. "Falsehood gallops in riotous pleasure when Truth is absent. Hold on! I can stand one wrinkle between your eyes, but I am afraid of two."

"A man of many accomplishments, but wholly lacking in humor," said McGlenn, seeming to study Richmond for the purpose of placing an appraisement on him. "A man who worships Ouida and decries Sir Richard Steele."

"No, I don't worship Ouida, but I read her sometimes because she is interesting. As for Steele, he is decried by your praise. Say, John, you advised me to change grocers every month, and I don't know but it would be a good plan. An old fellow that I have been trading with has sent me a bill for eighty-three dollars."

"John, he probably takes you for a great man and wants to compliment you."

"I don't object to a compliment, but that was flattery," Richmond, replied, taking his feet off one chair and putting them on another. "Let's ride home, John; it's 'most too slippery to walk."

"All right. You have ruined my health already by making me walk with you. Come on; we'll go now."

CHAPTER XVII.

AN OLD MAN WOULD INVEST.

When Henry went home to dinner he found, already seated at the table, old man Colton, Mrs. Colton and Mrs. Brooks. The old Marylander got away from his soup, got off his chair, and greeted Henry with an effusive display of what might have been his pleasure at seeing the young man, but which had more of the appearance of a palavering pretense. He bowed, ducked his head first on one side and then on the other—and his colored handkerchief dangled at his coat-tails. He found his tongue, which at first he seemed to have lost, and with his bald head bobbing about, he appeared as an aged child, prattling at random.

"Hah, hah, delighted to see you again, my dear young man. Didn't know that I was coming when you were so kind as to take lunch with me to-day; ladies came in the afternoon; Brooks couldn't come with me, but he will be here later on. Hah, hah, they are taking excellent care of us, you see. Ah, you sit here by me? Glad."

Mrs. Colton was exceedingly feeble, and her daughter appeared as a very old-fashioned girl in a stylish habit—an old daguerreotype sort of face, smooth, shiny and expressionless.

"We have all been talking about you," Colton said, as Henry sat down. "Your mother and sister think you a very wonderful man, and my dear friend Witherspoon"—

"Brother Colton is from Maryland," Witherspoon remarked.

Colton laughed and ducked his head. Ah, the listless wit of the rich! It may be pointless, but how laughable is the millionaire's joke.

"But, my dear young man, we are determined to have you with us," Colton declared, when he had recovered himself. He nodded at Witherspoon.

"We are going to try," the great merchant replied. "By the way, I told Brooks that we'd have to press Bradley & Adams, of Atchison, Kansas. They are altogether too slow—there's no excuse for it."

"None in the world; none whatever," Colton agreed. He more than agreed, for there was alarm in his voice, and the alarm of an old miser is pitiable. "Gracious alive, can they expect people to wait always? Dear, what can the world be coming to when we are all to be cheated out of our rights? We'll have the law on them."

Money professes great love for the law, and not without cause. The rich man thinks that the law is his; and the poor man says, "It was not made for me."

Among the ladies Henry was the subject of a subdued discussion, and occasionally he heard Mrs. Colton say: "Such a comfort to you, and after so many years of separation. So manly." And then Mrs. Brooks would say: "Yes, indeed."

Henry noticed that Colton was not accompanied with his mutton-broth economy. It was evident that the old man was frugal only to his own advantage, and that his heartiness came at the expense of other men.

Brooks arrived soon after dinner. The women went to the drawing-room to talk about Henry, and to exchange harmless hypocrisies, and the men betook themselves to the library to smoke and to discuss plots that are known as enterprises. Country merchants were taken up, turned over, examined and put down ruined. Brooks was as keen and as ardent as a prosecuting attorney. Every man who owed a bill was under indictment.

"You see," he said to Henry, "we have to hold these fellows tight or they would get loose and smash us."

"You needn't apologize to me," Henry replied.

"Of course not, but as you say that you don't understand business, I merely wanted to show you to what extent we are driven."

"Oh, I assure you that it is awfully unpleasant," said Colton, "but we have to do it. And let me tell you, my dear young man, there is more crime than you imagine in the neglect of these fellows. In this blessed country there is hardly any excuse for a man's failure to meet his obligations. The trouble is that people who can't afford it live too high. Let them economize; let them be sensible. Why, I could have gone broke forty-odd years ago; hah, I could go broke now. Oh, I know that we are all accused of being hard, but you have no idea what the wealthy people of this city do for the poor. Just look at the charity balls; look at our annual showing, and you'll find it remarkable."

Henry felt that the charity of the rich was largely a species of "bluff" that they make at one another. It was not real charity; it was an advertisement—it was business.

"My dear friend Witherspoon," said Colton, mouthing his cigar—he did not smoke at home—"I am going to branch out more. I'm going to make investments. I see that it is safe, and I want you to help me."

"All right; how much do you want to invest?"

"Oh, I can place my hand on a little money—just a little. I've got some in stocks, but I've got a little by me."

"How much?"

This frightened him. "Oh, I don't know; really, I can't tell. But I think that I've got a little that I'd like to invest. But I'll talk to you about it to-morrow."

"All right."

"I think real estate would be about the right thing. I could soon turn it over, you know. Some wonderfully fortunate investments have been made that way. But I'll talk to you about it to-morrow."

Brooke said that he was in something of a hurry to get home, and the visitors took their leave early in the evening. Witherspoon returned to the library after going to the door with Colton. He sat down, stretched forth his feet, meditated for a few moments, and said: "The bark on a beech tree was never any closer than that old man, and yet he is kind-hearted."

"When kindness doesn't cost anything, I suppose," Henry suggested.

"Yes, that's true. He spoke of the wonderful showing of the charities of this city as though he were a prime mover in them, when, in fact, I don't think he ever contributed more than a barrel of flour in any one year. But he is a good business man, and if there were more like him there would be fewer bankrupts."

Ellen appeared at the door. "Henry, mother and I are going to your room to pay you a call."

"All right, I'll go up with you. Won't you come, father?"

"No, I believe not. Think I'll read a while and go to bed."

Henry's room was bright with a gladsome fire. On the table had been set a vase of moss roses, and beside the vase lay an old black pipe, tied with a blue ribbon. The young man laughed, and the girl said:

"Mother's doings. Ugh! the nasty thing!"

"If my son smoked a pipe when he was in exile," Mrs. Witherspoon replied, "he can do so now. None of the privileges of a strange land shall be denied him in his own home."

She sat in an easy-chair and was slowly rocking. To man a rocking-chair is a remembrancer of a mother's affection.

"Light your pipe, my son."

"No, not now, mother."

Ellen sat on an arm of Henry's chair. "Your hair would curl if you were to encourage it," she remarked.

"Has anybody said anything about curly hair?" he asked.

"No, but I was just thinking that yours might curl."

"Do you want me to look like Brooks?"

She frowned. "He kinks his with a hot poker. I don't like pretty men."

"How about handsome men?"

"Oh, I have to like them. You are a handsome man, you know."

"Nonsense," he replied.

"Your grandmother was a very handsome woman," said Mrs. Witherspoon. "She had jet-black hair, and her teeth were like pearls. Ellen, what did Mr. Coglin say when you gave him the slippers?" Mr. Coglin was a clergyman.

"Oh, he thanked me, of course. He couldn't very well have said, 'Take them away.'"

"But did you tell him that you embroidered them with your own hands?"

"Yes, I told him."

"Then what did he say?"

"He pretended to be greatly surprised, and said something, but I have forgotten what it was. Mrs. Brooks is awful tiresome with her 'Yes, indeed,' isn't she? Seems to me that I'd learn something else."

"She's hardly so tiresome with her 'Yes, indeed,' as her father is with his 'Hah, hah, my dear Mr. Witherspoon,'" Henry replied.

"But he is a very old man, my son," said Mrs. Witherspoon, "and you must excuse him. I have heard that he was quite aristocratic before the war."

"Oh, he never was aristocratic," Ellen declared. "Aristocracy hampered by extreme stinginess would cut but a poor figure, I should think."

"Have we set up a grill here?" Henry asked.

Mrs. Witherspoon nodded at Ellen as if to emphasize the rebuke, and the young woman exclaimed: "Oh, I'm singled out, am I? Who said that the old man's 'hah, hah,' was tiresome? You'd better nod at your son, mother."

But she gave her son never a nod. In her sight he surely could commit no indiscretion. A moment later the mother asked:

"Have they talked to you again about going into the store?"

"Oh, they hint at it occasionally."

"Ellen, can't you find a chair? I know your brother must he tired." Ellen got off the arm of Henry's chair, and soon afterward Mrs. Witherspoon took the vacated place. The young woman laughed, but said nothing. The mother fondly touched Henry's hair and smoothed it back from his forehead. "Don't you let them worry you, my son. They can't help but respect your manliness. Indeed," she added, growing strangely bold for one so gentle, "must a man be a merchant whether he will or not? And whenever you want to write about poor women, you do it. They are mistreated; they are made wretched, and by just such men as Brooks, too. What does he care for a woman's misery? And your father's so blind that he doesn't see it. But I see it. And I oughtn't to say it, but I will—he has the impudence to tell your father that I give too much money to the poor. It's none of his business, I'm sure."

There was a peculiar softness in Henry's voice when he replied: "I hope some time to catch him interfering with your affairs."

"Oh, but you mustn't say a word, my son—not a word; and I don't want your father to know that I have said anything."

"He shall not know, but I hope some time to catch Brooks interfering with your affairs. He has meddled with mine, but I can forgive that."

Henry walked up and down the room when Mrs. Witherspoon and Ellen were gone. With a mother's love, that gentle woman had found a mother's place in his heart. He looked at the rocking-chair. Suddenly he seized hold of the mantelpiece to steady himself. He had caught himself seriously wondering if she had rocked him years ago.

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE INVESTMENT.