ant to patronize YOU, and allowed to me that
'de Kernel' had a 'fah ideah' of you, 'and thought you a promisin'
young man.' The fact is, sir, the party is making a big mistake trying
to give votes to that kind of cattle--it would only be giving two votes
to the other side, for, slave or free, they're the chattels of their
old masters. And as to the masters' gratitude for what you've done
affecting a single vote of their party--you're mistaken."

"Colonel Pendleton belongs to no party," said Paul, curtly; "but if his
old constituents ever try to get into power again, they've lost their
only independent martyr."

He presently became abstracted again, and Shear produced from his
overcoat pocket a series of official-looking documents.

"I've brought the reports, sir."

"Eh?" said Paul, absently.

The secretary stared. "The reports of the San Francisco Chief of
Police that you asked me to get." His employer was certainly very
forgetful to-day.

"Oh, yes; thank you. You can lay them on my desk. I'll look them over
in Committee. You can go now, and if any one calls to see me say I'm
busy."

The secretary disappeared in the adjoining room, and Paul leaned back
in his chair, thinking. He had, at last, effected the work he had
resolved upon when he left Rosario two months ago; the article he had
just read, and which would appear as an editorial in the San Francisco
paper the day after tomorrow, was the culmination of quietly persistent
labor, inquiry, and deduction, and would be accepted, hereafter, as
authentic history, which, if not thoroughly established, at least could
not be gainsaid. Immediately on arriving at San Francisco, he had
hastened to Pendleton's bedside, and laid the facts and his plan before
him. To his mingled astonishment and chagrin, the colonel had objected
vehemently to this "saddling of anybody's offspring on a gentleman who
couldn't defend himself," and even Paul's explanation that the putative
father was a myth scarcely appeased him. But Paul's timely
demonstration, by relating the scene he had witnessed of Judge Baker's
infelicitous memory, that the secret was likely to be revealed at any
moment, and that if the girl continued to cling to her theory, as he
feared she would, even to the parting with her fortune, they would be
forced to accept it, or be placed in the hideous position of publishing
her disgrace, at last convinced him. On the other hand, there was less
danger of her POSIT