The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, October 9, 1904, Page 4

THE SAN FRANCISCO SUNDAY CALL. I'm glad to know higher up.” The locomotive whistle was droning again, and a dodging procession of red- eyed switch-lights flicked past the windows. Kent stood up and flung away the stump of his cigar. “The capital,” he announced. “I'll go back with you and help out with the shawl-strap things.” And In the vesti- bule he added: *I spoke of Loring be- se he will be with us in anything we have to do in Mrs. Brentwood's be- Look up when you have fourth floor of the Quintard.” he has caught on CHAPTER VI Of the Making of Laws. The session, the shortest in the his- ory of the State, and thus far the least eventful, was nearing its close, and the alarmists whe had prophesied evil and evil only of the “Populist” victory were st losing credit with the men of their wn camp and with the country at large After the orthodox strife over the speakership of the House, and the equally orthodox wrangle over contest- cd seats, the State Assembly had set- led down to routine b ss, dispatch- ing it with such unheard-of celerity as to win columns of approval from the State press as a whole, though t ere not wanting a few radical editors to raise the ante-election cry of reform and to ask pointedly when it s begin. Notwithstanding the lack of alarms, howev the six weeks had been a pe- riod of unceasing vigilance on the part of the interests w upposed to be in jeopardy. ien corpora- ion' owning property and doing busi- s in the State had its own quota of watchful defenders on the ground; men who came and went in the lobbies of the capitol, in the visitors’ galleries, at the receptions; men who said lit- tle, but who saw and heard all things down to the small talk of the corridors nd the clubs, and the gossip-of the hotel rotundas. David Kent was of this silent army of observation, doing watchdog duty r the Western Pacific; thankful enough, if the truth be told, to have a thing to do which kept him from dwell- ang overmuch upon the wreck of his hopes. But in the closing days of the sion, when a dispatchful Assembly, anxious to be quit of its task, had gone into night “sittings, the anodyne drug )f work began to lose its effect. The Brentwoods had taken furnished apartments in Tejon avenue, two from the capitol, and Kent led no oftener than good breed- ing prescribed. Yet their accessibility and his unconquerable desire to sear his wound In the flame that caused it were constant temptations and he was battling with them for the hundredth time on the Friday night when he sat in the House gallery listening to a per- inetory debate which concerned itself with a bill touching State waterways. “Heavens! This thing is getting to be little short of deadly!” fumed Cren- shawe, his right hand neighbor, who was also a member of the corps of ob- servation. I'm going to the club for a game of ). Won't you come along?” Kent nodded and left his seat with the bored ome. But in the great ro- tunda he changed his mind. “You'll find plenty of better players than I am at the club,” he said in ex- tenuation. I think I'll smoke a whiff or two here and go back. They can’t hold on much longer for to-night.” Five minutes later, when he had lighted a cigar and was glancing over the evening paper, two other members of the corporation committee of safety came down from the Senate gallery and stopped opposite Kent's pillar to struggle into their overcoaots. “It's precisely as I wrote our people two weeks ago—a timidity scare, pure and simple,” one of them was saying. “I've a mind to start home to-morrow. There is nothing doing here, or going to be done.” “No,” said the other. “If it wasn't for House bill 29, I'd go to-night. They will adjourn to-merrow or Monday."” “House bill 29 Is much too dead to bury,” was the reassuring re- joinder. “The committee is ours, and the bill will not be heard of again at , this session. If that is all you are holding on for—" ‘They passed out of earshot, and Kent folded his newspaper absently. House bill 29 had been the one measure touching the sensitive “vested interests”; the one measure for the suppression of which the corporation’s lobby had felt called on to take steps. It was an omnibus bill put forth as a eubstitute for the existing law defining the status of foreign corporations. It had originated in the Governor's office —a fact which Kent had ferreted out within twenty-four hours of its first reading—and for that reason he had procured a printed copy, searching it dfligently for the hidden menace he was sure it embodied. When the search proved fruitless he had seen the bill pass the House by a safe majority, had followed it to the Senate, and in a cunningly worded amendment tacked on in the upper house had found what he was seeking. TUnder the existing law foreign corpora- tions were subject to State supervision; and were dealt with as presumably un- friendly aliens. But the Senate amend- ment to House bill 20 (fairly swept the interstate corporations, as such, out of existence, by making it obligatory upon them to acquire the standing of. local corporations. Char- ters were to be reflled with the Secre- tary of State; resident directories and operating headquarters were to be es- tablished within the boundaries and jurisdiction of the State; in short, the State proposed, by the terms of the new law, to deal only with creatures of its own creation. Kent saw, or thought he saw, the fine hand of the junta in all this. It wae a still hunt in which the longest way around was the shortest way home. Like all new-country codes, the organic law of the State favored local corporations, and it might be argued that a bill placing the foreign com- panies on a purely local footing was an unmixed blessing to the aliens. But, on the other hand, an unprincipled ex- ecutive might easily make the new law an engine of extortion. To go no fur- ther into the matter than the required refiling of charters: the State constitu- tion zave the Secretary of State quasi- judicial powers. It was within his provinee to pass upon the applications for chartered rights and to deny them square had ca if the question pro bono publico were invoived. Kent put two and two together, saw the wide door of exactions which might be opened, and passed the word of warning among his associates; after which he had watched the course of the amended House bill 29 with interest sharp-set, planning meanwhile with Hildreth, the editor of the Daily A gus, an expose which should make plain the immense possibilities for cor- ruption opened up by the proposed law; a journalistic salvo of publicity to be fired as a last resort. The measure as amended had passed the Senate without debate and bhad gone back to the House. Here, after the second reading, and in the very hour when the Argus editorial was getting itself cast in the linotypes, there was a hitch. ®he member from the Rio Blaneo, favoring the measure in all its parts, and fearful only lest corporation gold might find a technical flaw in it, moved that it be referred to tse Committee on Judiciary for a re- port on its constitutionality; and, a cordingly to the Committee on Judic! ary it had gone. . Kent recalled the passing of the crisis, remembering how he had hast- ened to telephone the Argus editor to kill the expose at the last moment. The incident was now a month in the past, and the committee had not yet repor ed; would never report, Kent imagimed. He knew the personnel of the Commit- tee on Judicia: knew * that at least three members ot it were down on the list, made up at the beginning of on by his colleagues th observation, as ‘approach: bl Also, he knew by interence at least, that these three men had been approached, not without success, and that House bill 28, with its fee-gather- ing amendment, was safely shelved. It's an ill-smelling muckheap!” he frowned, recailing the incidents of the crisis at the suggestion let fall by the two outgoing lobbyists. “And sé much of this dog watch as isn't sickeningly demoralizing is deadly dull, as Cren- shawe puts it. I 1 had anywhere to go, I'd cut the galleries for to-night.” He was returning the newspaper to his pocket when it occurred to him that his object in buying it had been to note the stock quotations; a daily duty which, for Elinor's sake, he had never omitted. Whereupon he re- opened it and ran his eye down the lists. There was a decided upward ten- dency in Westerns. Overland Short Line had gained two points; and West- ern Pacific— He held the paper under the nearest electric globe to make sure; Western Pacific, preferred, was quoted at fifty- t and a half, which was one point and a half above the Brentwood pur- chase price. One minute later an excited life-saver was shut in the box of the public tele- phone, gritting his teeth at the inanity of the central operator who insisted on giving him “A-1224" instead of “A- 1234, the Hotel Wellington. “No, no! Can’t you understand? I want twelve-thirty-four; one, two, three, four; the Hotel Wellington.” There was more skirling of bells, an- other nerve-trying wait, and at last the clerk of the hotel answered. “What name did you say? Oh, it's Yyou, is it, Mr. Kent? Ormsby? Mr. Brookes Ormsby? No, he isn’t here: he went out about two minutes ago. What's that you say? Damn? Well, I'm sorry, too. No message that I can take? All right. Good-by.” This was the beginning. For the middle part Kent burst out of the tele- phone-box and took the nearest short- cut through the capitol grounds for the street-car corner. At a quarter of nine he was cross-questioning the clerk face to face in the lobby of the Wellington. There was little more to be learned about "Ormsby. The clubman had left his key and gone out. He was in even- ing dress, and had taken a cab at the hotel entrance. Kent dashed across to his rooms, and, in a feverish race against time, made himself fit to chase a man in evening dress. There was no car in sight when he came down, and he, too, took a cab with an explosive order to the driver: il"? Tejon Avenue, and be quick about It was the housemaid that answered his ring at the door of the Brentwood apartments. She was a Swede, a recent importation; hence Kent learned noth- ing beyond the bare fact that the la- dies had gone out. “With Mr. Orms- by?” he asked. £ “Yaas; Aye tank it vill pee dat yen- mans.” The pursuer took the road again. rather unhopefully. There were a dozen places where Ormsby might have taken his charges. Among them there was the legislative reception at Portia Van Brock's. Kent flinped a figurative coin, and gave the order for Alameda Square. The reception there was perhaps the least unlikely place of the dozen. He was no more than fashion- ably late at the Van Brack house, and fortunately he was able to reckon himself among the chosen few for whom Miss Portia's door swung on hos- pitable hinges at all hours. Loring had known her in Waskington. and he had stood sponsor for Kent in the first week of the exile's residence at the capital. Thereafter she had taken Kent up on his own account, and by now he was deep in her debt. For one thing, she had set the fashion in the matter of legislative receptions —her detractors, knowing nothing whatever about it, hinted that she had been an amateur social lobbyist in ‘Washington, playing the game for the pure zest of it—and at these functions Kent had learned many things per- tinent te his purpose as a watch dog for the railroad company and legal ad- viser to his chief — things not named openly on the floor of the House or of the Senate chamber. There was a crush in the ample man- sion in Alameda Square, as there al- ways was at Miss Van Brock’s “open evenings,” and when Kent came down from the cloakroom he had to inch his way by littles through the crowded reception parlors in the search for the Brentwood party. It was unsuccessful at first; but later, catching a glimpse of Elinor at the piano, and another of Penelope inducting an up-country legislator into the mysteries of social small talk, he breathed freer. His hap- hazard guess had hit the mark, and the finding of Ormsby was now only a question of nmroments, It was Miss Van Brock herself who told him where to look for the club- man—though not at his first asking. “You did come, then,” she said, giv- ing her hand with a frank little smile of welcome. ‘“‘Some one sald you were not going to be frivolous any more, and I wondered 'if you would take it out on me. Have you been at the night ses- at what you and your frivoli- ties have left of it. A good third of the Solons seem to be sitting in per- manence in Alameda Squart * ‘Solcns,’ she repeated. “That re- calls Editor Brownlow's little joke— only he didn’t mean it. He wrote of them as ‘Solons,’” but the printer got it ‘solans.’” The member from Caliente read the article and the word stuck in his mind. In an unhappy hour he asked Colonel Mack’s boy—Harry, the irre- pressible, you know—to look it up for him. Harry did it, and, of course, took the most public oceasion he could find to hand in his answer. ‘It's geese, Mr. Hackett!” he announceds triumphantly, and after we were all through laugh- ing at him the member from the warm place turned it just as neatly as a vet- eran. ‘Well, I'm Hackett,’ he said.” David Kent laughed, as he was in duty bound, but he still had Ormsby on his mind. “I see you have Mrs. Brentwood and her daughters here—can you tell me vhere I can find Mr. Brookes Orms- “I suppose I could if I should try. But you mustn't hurry me. There is a vacant corner in that davenport be- yond the piano; please put me there and fetch me an ice. I'll wait for you.” He did as he was bidden and when she was served he stood over her, wondering, as other men had won- dered. what was the precise secret of her charm. Lorjng had told him Miss Van Brock’s story. She was Southern born, the only child of a somewhat ill considered match between a voung California lawyer, wire-pull- ing in the national capital in the in- terest of the Central Pacific Railroad. nd a Virginia belle tasting the de- of her first winter in Wash- Later the young lawyer's State, or his employers, had sent him to Con- gress, and Portia, left motherless in her middle childhood, had grown up in an atmosphére of statecraft, or what passes for such, in an era of frank commercialism. Inheriting her mother's rare beauty of face and form and uniting with it a sympathet- ic'gift in grasp of detail, pelitical and other, she soon became her father's confidante and loyal partisan, taking the place, as a daughter might, of the ambitious .young wife and mother, who had set her heart on seeing the Van Brock name on the roll of the United States Senate. Rensselaer Van Brock had died be- fore the Senatorial dream could be realized, but not before he had made a sufficient number of lucky invest- ments to leave his daughter the ar- bitress of her own future. What that future should be not even Loring could guess. Since her father's death Miss Van Brock had been a citizen of the world. With a widowed aunt for the shadowiest of chaperons she had drifted with the tide of inclination, coming finally to rest in the Western capital for no better reason, perhaps, than that some portion of her interest bearing securities were emblazoned with the great seal of this particular Western State, 3 Kent was thinking of Loring's re- countal as he stood looking down on her. Other women were younger— and with features more conventional- ly beautiful; Kent could find a round dozen within easy eye reach, fo say nothing of the calm-eyed, queenly im- provisatrice at the piano—his con- stant standard of all womanly charm * and grace. Unconsciously he fell to comparing the two, his hostess and his love, and. was brought back to things present by a sharp reminder from Portia. “Stop looking at Miss Brentwood that way, Mr. David. She is not for ‘you: and you are keeping me wait- ng.” He smiled down on her. “It is the law of compensation. I fancy you have kept many a man waiting, and will keep many another.” There was a little tang of bitterness in her laugh. “You remind me of the time when I went home from school—oh, years and years ago. Old Chloe—she was my black mammy, you know—had a grown daughter of her own, and her effort to dispose of her ‘M'rand’ was a standing joke in the family. In an- swer to my stereotyped question she stood back and folded her arms. ‘Naw, honey; dat M'randy ain’t ma-ied yit. She gwine be des lak you; look pretty, and say, Howdy! Misteh Jawnson, an’ 8o 'long by awn turrer side de road.’ " “A very pretty little fable,” "said Kent. *“And the moral?” “Is that I amuse myself with you— ali of you; and in your turn you make use of me—or you think you do. Of what use can I be to Mr. David Kent this evening?” “See how you misjudge me!” he pro- tested. “My errand here to-night is purely charitable. Which brings me back to Ormsby—did you say you could tell me where to look for him 7" “He is in the smoking-room with five or six other tobacco misanthropes. What do you want of him?” ' “I want to say two words in his ear: after which I shall vanish and make recom for my betters.” Miss Van Brock was gazing stead- fastly at the impassioned face lighted by the piano candles. “Is it about Miss Brentwood?" she asked abruptly. “In a way—yes,” he confessed. She rose and stood beside him—a Lewitching figure of a woman who knew her part in the human comedy and played it well. “Is it wise, David ?"" she asked sofily. “I am not denying the possibilities; you might come between them if you should try—I'm rather afraid you could. But you mustn’t, you know; it’s too late. You've marred her, he- tween you; or rather that convention, which makes a woman deaf, blind and drmb until a man has fairly com- mitted himself, has marred her. For your sake she can never be quite all she ought to be to him—for his sake she could never be auite the same to you."” . He drew apart from her, frowning. “If 1 should say that I don't fully understand what you mean?”’ he re- joined. “I should retort by saying something extremely uncomplimentary aboutyour lack of perspicacity,” she cut in ma- liciously. I beg pardon,” he said, a little stifiy. “You are laboring under an entirely wrong impression. What I have to say to Mr. Brookes Ormshy does not remotely concern the matter you touch upon. It's an affair of the Stock Exchange. “As if 1 didn't know!" she coun- tered. “You merely reminded me of the other thing. But if it is only a business secret you may as well tell me all about it at first hands. Some one is sure to tell me sooner or later.” Now David Kent was growing im- patient. Down In the inner depths of him he was persuaded that Ormsby might have difficulty in inducing Mrs. Brentwood to sell her Western Pacific stock even at an advance; might re- quire time, at least. And time, with a Bucks majority tinkering with corpor- ate rights in the Assembly, might well be precious. “Forgive me if I tell Ormsby first,” he pleaded. ‘“‘Afterward, if you care to know, you shall.” Miss Van Brock let him go at that. but now the way to the smoking den en the floor above was hedged up. He did battle with the polite requirements, as a man must; shaking hands or ex changing a word with cne and another of the obstructors only as he had to. one the less, when he had finally ought his way to the smoking-room Ormsby i i He went back to the parlors, wonder- ing how he had missed the clubman. In the middle room of the suite he found Portia chatting with Marston, the Lieutenant Gevernor; and a young weman in the smarte: eption gowns had succeeded to E place queried the hos- to the tall, You found him?" tess, excusing herself saturnine man who had shared the honors at the head of the People's party ticket with Jasper G. Bucks, “No," said Kent. “Have you seen him “Why, yes; they all came to take leave just a few moments after you jeft, me. I thought of telling Mr. Orms- by you were laoking for him, but you shut me off so snippily—" “Miss Van Brock! What have done? T must go at once.” “Really? I am complimented. But if you must, you must, 1 suppose. I had something to tell you—something of importance; but I can’'t remember what it was now. I never can remem- ber things in the hurry of leave-tak- you we have intimated, Kent had hitherto found Miss Portia’s co fidences exceedingly heipful in a bus ness way, and he hesitated. ‘‘Tell me,” he begged. “No, I can't remember it: T doubt if 1 shall ever remember it unless you can remind me by télling me why you are so desperately anxious to find Mr. Ormsby.” “I wonder if you hold everybody up like this,” he laughed. “But 1 don’t mind telling you. . Western Pacific pre- ferred has gone to fifty-eight and a half A “And Mr. Ormsby hag some to sell? 1 wish I had. Do you know what I'd do?” She drew closer and laid a hand on his arm. “I'd sell—by wire—to- night; at least, I'd make sure that my telegram would be the first thing my broker would lay his hands on in the morning.’ “On general principles, .1 suppose, so should I, and for. the same redson. But have I succeeded in reminding you of that thing you were going to tell me?” “Not whqlly; only partly. You said this matter of Mr. Ormsby’s concerned Brentwood—in a way—didn't You will have yvour pound of flesh entire, won’'t you? The stock is-hers, and her mother’s and sister’s. I want Ormsby to persuade them to sell. They’'ll listen to him. That is all; all the all.” “Of course,” she said, airily. “How simple of me not to have been able to add it up without your help. 1 saw the quotation in the evening pa- per; and I know, perhaps, better than you do. the need for haste. Must you go now?”’ She had taken his arm and was edging him through the press in the parlors toward the en- trence hall. ‘“You haven't paid me yet,” he ob- Jected. “No; TI'm trying to remember. Oh, ves; I have it now. Wasn't some one telling me that you were interest- ed in House bill 292" They had reached the dimly lighted front vestibule and her hand was still on his arm. “I was interested in it,” he ad- mitted, correcting the present to the past tense. “But after it went to the House Committee on Judiciary you left it to more skillful or perhaps we'd better say to less scrupulous hand. “I believe you are a witch. anything you don't know ?” “Plenty of things. For example, 1 don’t exactly know how much it cost our good friends of the sted inter- ests’ to have t bill mislaid in the committee-room. But 1 do know thev made a very foolish bargain.” “Beyond all doubt a most demoral- izing bargain, which, to say the best of it. was only a choice between two evils. But why foolish? “Because—well, b use mislaid things have a way of turning up un- expectedly, you know, and—" He stopped her in a sudden dust of feverish excitement. 3 Tell me what you mean in one word, Miss Van Brock. Don’t those fellows intend to stay bought?” She smiled pityingiy. “You are very young, Mr. David or very honest. Supposing those ‘fe lows,’ as rou dub the honorable me bers of the Committee on Judictar had a little plan of their own; a pla suggested by the readiness of certain of tneir epponents to rush into print h statements which might derar o i “I am supposing it might.” *“That is right: we are only posing, yeu must remember. We may suppose their idea was to let the excitement about the amend- ed bill dle down: let people generally, and one fiercely honest young corporation attormey in particu- lar, have time to forget that there was such a thing as House bill 29. And in such a suppositional case, how much would they be surprised and how they weculd laugh in their sleeves if some ore came along and paid them handsomely for doing precisely what they meant to d David Kent's smile was almost fero- cious. . “My argument is as good now as it was in the beginnis they have yet to reckon with the man who will dare tc expose them.” She turned from him and spake to the footman at the door. . “Thomas, fetch Mr. Kent's coat and hat from the dressing-room.” And then to Kent, in the tome she might have used in telling him of the latest breezi- ness of the member from the Rio Blan- cc: I remember now what it was that I wanted to tell you. While you have been trying to find Mr. Ormsby, the Cemmittee on Judiciary.has been re- porting the long-lost House bill 29, If you hurry you may be .in Is there with ‘all my sup- time to see it passed—it will doubtless ge through without any tiresome d.- bate. But you will hardly have time to obstruct it by arousing public senti- ment through the newspapers.” Dayid Kent shook the light touch »f her hand from his arm and set his teeth hard upon a word hot from the furnace of righteous indignation. Fo: a moment he fuily belicved she was in league with the junta: that she had been purposely holding him in talk while, the very seconds were priceless. She’ saw the scornful wrath in his eyves and turned it aside with a swift denial. “No, David; I didn't do that she said, speaking to his inmost thought. “If there had heen anything you could dc—the smallest shadow of a chance for vou—I should have sent you flying at the irst word. But there wasn't] it was all too well arranged—" But he had snatched coat and hat from the waiting Thomas and was run- ning like a madman for the nearest cabstand. CHAPTER VIIL The Sentimentalists. 's time from Alameda square tu the capitol was the quickest a flog- zed cab horse could make, but he might have spared the horse and saved the double fee. On the broad steps of the =outh portico he, uprushing three at a bound, met the advance guard of the gallery contingent down coming. The House had adjourned. “‘One minute, Harnwicke!" he gasped, falling upon the first memper of the corporations’ lobby he could identify in the throng. “What's done?"” “They've taken a fall out of us,” was the brusque reply. “House bill 29 was reported by the Commitiee on Judiciary and rushed through after you left. Somebody engineered it to the paring of a finger nail; bare quorum to act; members who might have fili- bustered weeded out on one pretext or another; to a man; pages all excused and nobody hefe with the privilege of the floor. It was as meat a piece of gag work as I ever hope to see if I live to be a hundred.” Kent turned about and joined the tewnward dispersal with his informant. “Well, I suppose that settles it defi- nitely; at least, until we can test its constitutionality in the courts,” he said. Harnwicke thought not, being of the opinion that the vested interests would never say die until they were quite dead. As assistant counsel for the Overland Short Line he was in some sense the dean of the corps of observa- tion, and could speak with authority. ‘“There is one chance left for us this side of the courts,” he went on; “and now that I think of it you are the man to say how much of a chance it is. The bill still lacks the Governor's sig- nature.” Kent shook his head. « “It’s his own measure. T have proof positive that he and Meigs and Hen- dric drafted it. And all this fine ing to-night was his beea enginee “Of course, we all know that. But we don't know the particular object vet." Do they need the new law in their business as a source of revenue? Or do they want to be hired to kill it? In other words, does Bucks want a lump sum for a veto? You know the man better than any of u “By Jove!” said Kent. to say you would buy the a State?” Harnwicke turned a cold eye on his companion as they strode along. He was of the square-set, plain-spoken. aggressive type—a finished product of the modern school of business lawyers. “I don’t understand raising the question of ethics at this stage of the game, do 1?2 he remarked. Kent fired up a little. “And if T am? > retorted. “I should say you had missed your calling. It is baldly a question of busi- r rather of self-nreservation. We mince matters among our- If Bucks is for.sale, we buy ernor of ne needn’t selves. him.” Kent shrugged.- “There isn't any doubt about his pur- chasability. But I confess I don’t quite see how you will go about it. “Never mind that part of it; just leave the wayvs and means with those of us who have riper experience—and fewer hamperings, perhaps—than you have. Your share in it is to tell us how big a bid we must mak As 1 say, you know the man.” £ David Kent was silent for the strid- ing of half a square. The New Eng- onscience dies hard, and while 1t s it is given to drawing sharp lines on all the boundaries of culpability. Kent ended by taking the matter in debate violently out of the domain of ethics and standing it unon the ground of expediency. “It will cost too much. You would have to bid high—not to overcome his seruples, for he has none: but to satisfy his greed—which is abnormal. And, bésides, he has his pose to defend. If he can see his way clear to a harvest of extortions under the law, he will probably turn you down—and will make it hot for vou later on in the name of outraged virtue.” Harnwicke’'s laugh was cynical. “He and his little clique don't own the earth in fee simple. Perhaps we shall be able to make them grasp that idea before we are through with them. We have had this fight on in other States. Would ten thousand be likely to satisfy him?" “No,” said Kent. “If you add another cipher, it might.” “A hundred thousand is a pot of money. 1 take it for granted the West- ern Pacific will stand its pro-rate?” The New England conscience bucked again, and Kent made his first open protest dgainst the metheds of the de- moralizers. “1 am not in a position to say: I should advise against it. Unofficially, [ think I can speak for Loring and the Boston people. We are not more saint- 1y than other folk, perhaps: and we are not in the railroad business for health or pleasure. But I fancy the Advisory Board would draw the line at bribing a Covernor—at .any rate, I hope it would.” “Roi!” said Harnwicke. “You'll reap the benefits interstate interests; come in# Kent hesitated, but not now on the ground ef the principle to be de- fended. “That brings in a question which I am not competent to decide. Loring is your man. You will call a con- ference of the ‘powers,’ I take it?" “It is already called. I sent Ather- ton out to notify everybody as soon as the trap was sprung ip the Howuse. We meet in the ordinary at the Canie- lot. You'll be there?” A little later—if Loring wants me. I have some telephoning to do before this thing gets on the wires.” They parted at the entrance to the Camelot Club and Kent went two squares farther on to the Wellington. Ormsby had not yet returned and And then: with other you'll have to that you are: Kent went to the telephone and r::'.l"fld up the Brentwood apartments. It was Penelope that answered. by “Well, T think you owe it,” she be- an as soon as he had given his name. “What did I do at Miss Van Brock's to make vou cut me dead “Why. nothing at all, I'm sure. I— l Ormsby, and - you,” she broke in flippantly. “You were handing Miss Portia an ice. Are you still look- ing for Mr. Ormsby?"” e “1 am-—just that. Is he with you “No: he left here about twenty minutes ago. Is it anything serious” “Serious enough to make me want to find him as cuick as I can. Did he say he was coming down to the Wellington 2" ~Of course he didn’t,” laughed Pen- eldpe. And then, “Whatever is the matter with you this evening, Mr. Kent?"” ] guess I'm a little excited,” said ~Something has happened ng I can't talk about over the s. It concerns you and your mother and sister. You'll know all about it a nd Ornisby and send .Penelope’s and gasping. one dead?” she faltered. “No, no; it's nothing of that kind. I'll send Ormsby out and he will tell you all about it.” “Can’'t you come yourself?” “I may have to if I can’t find Orms- by. Please don't let your mother go to bed until you have heard from one or the other of us. Did you get that?" “Ye-es; but I should like to know more—a great deal more.” “I know, and I'd like to tell you. But I am using the public telephone here at the Wellington and—Oh, damn!™ Central had cut him out and it was some minutes before the con- nection was switched iIn again. “Is that you, Miss Penelope? All right; I wasn't quite through. When Ormsby comes, you must do as he tells you tc, and you and Miss Elinor must help him convince your mother. Do you understand?” N I don’t understand anything. For goodnes sake, find Mr. Ormsby and make him run! This is perfectly dreadful!™ “Isn’t it? Good-by.” Kent hung up the receiver, and when he was asking a second time at the clerk’'s desk for the missing man, Ormsby came in to answer for himseif Whereupon the crisis was outlined to him in brief phrase, and he rose to the occasion, though not without a grim- “‘Oh!"” was long drawn And I'm awfully sorry. not sure just how well know Mrs. Hepzibah Brentwood,” demurred; “but it will be quite like her to balk. Don't you think you'd better go aloag? You are the company’s at- and your opinion ought to y some weight.” David Kent thought not; but a cau- tious diplomatist, having got the idea well into the hack part of his head, was te be denied. Of course, you'll come. You are just the man I'll need to back me up. 1 shan’t shirk: I'll take the mother into the library and break the ice, whiie you are squaring things with the young women. Penelope won't care the snap of her finger eith¢r way; but Elinor has some notions that you are fitter to cope with than I am. After, if you can give me a lift with Mrs. Hepzibah, T'il call you in. Come on; it's getting pretty late to go visiting,™ Kent yielded reiuctantly, and they took a car for the sake of speed. It was Penelope who opened the door for them at 124 Tejon avenue, and Ormsky made ite for s coadjutor, as he had promised. “I want to see your mother in the library for a few minutes,” he began. “Will you arrange it, and take care of Mr. Kent until 1 come for him?" Penelope “arranged” it, pot without another added pang of curiosity, whereapon David Kent found himself the rather embarrassed third of a silent trio gathered about the embers of the sitting-room fire. (Continued Next Sunday.) JOE ROSENBERG" No Better Children's Mae Anpwhere HOSIERY THE PONY HAS NO EQUAL FOR FIT OR WEARING QUALITY. Mothers that have had their children wear them speak of them in the highest praise. Will outwear three pairs of any make; made of XXX Sea Island double-twisted thread; stainless black; fine and wide- ribbed; light, medium and heavy weight; double heels, toes and knees; soft as velvet to the most tender feet; all sizes, 2sc Pair. JOE ROSENBERG The Home of Qualrty Steckings, ‘816 Market and 11 0'Farrell §t,