edges remained; old unpainted frame buildings lingered in blocks that otherwise contained handsome houses. Sugar-loaf cubes of clay loomed lonesomely, with houses stranded high on their summits, where property owners had been too poor to cut down their bits of earth to conform to new levels. The clay banks were ugly, but they were doomed to remain until the next high tide of prosperity.

[Pg 10]

The Clarkson Club stood at the edge of the commercial district, and its Milwaukee brick walls rose hot and staring in the July sun as Porter and Saxton approached.

"Here we are," said Porter, leading the way into the wide hall. "We'll arrange about your business relations later. There's a very bad lunch ready upstairs, and we'll go against that first."

There were only a few men in the dining-room, seated at a round table. Porter exchanged salutations with them as he passed on to a small table at the end of the room. Those who were of his own age called Porter, "Billy," and he included them all in the careless nod of old acquaintance. Porter offered Saxton the wine card, which the young man declined with instinctive knowledge that he was expected to do so. They took the simple table d'hôte, which was, as Porter had predicted, very bad. The banker ate little and carried the burden of the conversation.

They went from the table for an inspection of the club, and arranged with the clerk in the office for a[Pg 11] room on the third floor, which Mr. Saxton was to have, so Porter told the clerk, until he didn't want it any more.

[Pg 11]

"It's all right about the rules," he said; "if the house committee kick about it, send them to me." They stopped in the lounging room, where the men from the round table were now talking or looking at newspapers. Porter introduced Saxton to all of them, stating in his humorous way, with variations in every case, that this was a new man in town; that victims were scarce in hard times, and that they must make the most of him. Several of the men who shook hands with Saxton were railroad officials, but nearly every line of business was represented. All seemed to wear their business consciously, and Saxton was made aware of their several employments in one way or another as he stood talking to them. He felt that their own frankness should elicit a response on his part, and he stated that he had come to represent the interests of "Eastern people,"—a phrase which, in that territory, has weight and significance. 

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