se with becoming clarity and frankness. The upshot of all this was
that they sat smoking solemnly and in phlegmatic silence for upwards of
a quarter of an hour, at the end of which time the President rose and
tossed his cigar-butt out of the window.

"Going on through with your people, are you?" he said, steadying himself
by the door-jamb.

"Yes; as far as Salt Lake," Brockway replied, wondering if he ought to
apologize for the intention.

"H-m; changed your plans rather suddenly, didn't you?"

"The party changed them; I wasn't notified till ten minutes before
train-time."

"No? I suppose you didn't know we were going on to-night, either, did
you? or did the despatcher tell you?"

"No one told me. I knew nothing of it till I saw the Naught-fifty in the
train."

"And that was?----"

"Just at the last moment--after the train had started, in fact."

"Ah. Then I am to understand that our movements have nothing to do with
your being here now?"

Brockway had begun by being studiously deferential and placable, but the
questions were growing rather personal.

"You are to understand nothing of the sort," he replied. "On the
contrary, I am here solely because you saw fit to change your
itinerary."

President Vennor was so wholly unused to anything like a retort from a
junior and an inferior that he sat down in the opposite seat and felt
mechanically in his pockets for a cigar. Brockway promptly capped the
climax of audacity by offering one of his own, and the President took it
absently.

"It is scarcely worth your while to be disrespectful, Mr. Brockway," he
said, when the cigar was alight.

"I don't mean to be."

"But you intercepted my telegram this morning, and sent me a most
impertinent reply."

"I did; and a little while before that, you had tried to knock me down."

"So I did, but the provocation was very considerable; you must admit
that."

"Cheerfully," said Brockway, who was coming to his own in the matter of
self-possession with gratifying rapidity. "But I take no shame for the
telegram. As I told Miss Gertrude, I would have done a much worse thing
to compass the same end."

The President frowned and coughed dryly. "The incentive was doubtless
very strong, but I am told that you have since been made aware of the
facts in the case--relative to my daughter's forfeiture of her
patrimony, I mean."

"The 'incentive,' as you call it, was the only obstacle. When I learned
that it did not exist, I a