me. I'd as lief be descended from a canvased ham as an Astor peltry or a Vanderbilt steamboat. And I'm tired of the jokes in the barber-shop comic weeklies, about the rich Westerners who make a vulgar display of themselves in New York. If we do it, it's merely because we're doing in Rome as the Romans do. These same shampoo and hair-cut humorists[Pg 20] are unable to get away from their jests about the homicidal tendencies of Western barkeepers and the woolliness of the cowboys. Those anemic commuters down there know no higher joy than a Weber & Fields matinee or a Rogers Brothers on the Bronx first-night. Sometimes I feel moved to grow a line of whiskers and add my barbaric yawp to the long howl of the Populist wolf. But, you know," he added, suddenly lowering his voice, "I reserve the right to abuse my fellow citizens when I love them most. I tore Populism to tatters last fall in a few speeches they let me make in the back counties. Our central committee hadn't anything to lose out there. That's why they sent me!"

[Pg 20]

Saxton was walking beside Raridan in the lower hall. He felt an impulse to express gratitude for his rescue from the loneliness of the twilight; but Raridan, talking incessantly, and with hands thrust easily into his trousers' pockets, led the way into the reading-room.

"Hello, Wheaton, I didn't know you were at home," he called to a man who sat reading a newspaper, and who now rose on seeing a stranger with Raridan.

"This is Mr. Saxton, Mr. Wheaton."

"Oh, yes," said the man introduced as Wheaton. "I wondered whether I shouldn't see you here. Mr. Porter told me you had come."

"I've been bringing Mr. Saxton up to date in local history," said Raridan.

"Chiefly concerning yourself, I suppose," said Wheaton, with a smile that did not wholly succeed in being amiable.

"It isn't often I get a chance at a brand new man,"[Pg 21] Raridan ran on. "I've told the worst about you, so conduct yourself accordingly."

[Pg 21]

"Mr. Raridan's worst isn't very bad," said Saxton. "From his account of this town and its people, the place must be paradise and the inhabitants saints."

Raridan called for cigars, but Wheaton declined them.

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