help.”

“Better give him a free hand on it.”

A sudden flush overspread the Southerner’s face and his look of gratitude followed the great architect.

But if King looked for sudden fame in New York, he was disappointed. Putting aside his ambition for the time being, he threw himself into the task of developing along the special line he had chosen for a foothold, with the same ardor that had carried him to the front at college, and his work stood all tests, easily. Beeker, Toomer & Church became headquarters for art glass designs in architecture. Presently his salary rose. And then again. And at length he found himself independent. But, to use his own expression, he “got nowhere.” The reason was simple; it was a rule of the office that all designs should bear the firm’s name only. Church had carefully explained this in the beginning. Church had also seen to it that press notices of their notable work invariably mentioned that Ralph Church was the head of the department responsible for it. King writhed under this system, but he could not budge without financial backing. He was heartily tired of his narrow field. At odd times, in his own living room, he worked on his ambitious dream.

The dream of the young architect was a thirty-five story office building wherein utility was to be combined with beauty without sacrifice of dividend-paying space or money, and without offense to the artistic eye from any point of view. Many architects have wrestled with the same problem and some with brilliant results. Now, by strange coincidence, a thirty-five story office building for Chicago, financed in New York, began to be talked of in building circles. No plans had been asked, no consultation with architects had. A rumor had started and was kicked around as a football. King took the backward trail and patiently followed it into the office of a certain great banker, whose young woman secretary had a friend that served an afternoon paper in reportorial capacity. Here King met his Waterloo; for no man in New York was less accessible than this particular banker, who had once received a “black-hand” letter. Red tape, red-headed office boy, confidential clerks, private secretary, hemmed him in from all but his selected associates. And the banker’s offices were full of unsuspected exits. All roads led from his Rome.

King stalled at the red-headed boy—the extreme outer guard.

It was at this stage of his career that he put aside ambition and raced off to Georgia for a few days along 

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