less
facts. "And righteousness and Roebuck will prevail," said I.

He frowned slightly, a sardonic grin breaking the straight, thin, cruel
line of his lips. He opened his table's one shallow drawer, and took out a
pad and a pencil. He wrote a few words on the lowest part of the top sheet,
folded it, tore off the part he had scribbled on, returned the pad and
pencil to the drawer, handed the scrap of paper to me. "I will do it," he
said. "Give this to Mr. Farquhar, second door to the left. Good morning."
And in that atmosphere of vast affairs speedily despatched his consent
without argument seemed, and was, the matter-of-course.

I bowed. Though he had not saved me as a favor to me, but because it fitted
in with his plans, whatever they were, my eyes dimmed. "I shan't forget
this," said I, my voice not quite steady.

"I know it," said he curtly. "I know you." I saw that his mind had already
turned me out. I said no more, and withdrew. When I left the room it was
precisely as it had been when I entered it--except the bit of paper torn
from the pad. But what a difference to me, to the thousands, the hundreds
of thousands directly and indirectly interested in the Coal combine and its
strike and its products, was represented by those few, almost illegible
scrawlings on that scrap of paper.

Not until I had gone over the situation with Farquhar, and we had signed
and exchanged the necessary papers, did I begin to relax from the
strain--how great that strain was I realized a few weeks later, when
the gray appeared thick at my temples and there was in my crown what
was, for such a shock as mine, a thin spot. "I am saved!" said I to
myself, venturing a long breath, as I stood on the steps of Galloway's
establishment, where hourly was transacted business vitally affecting
the welfare of scores of millions of human beings, with James Galloway's
personal interest as the sole guiding principle. "Saved!" I repeated, and
not until then did it flash before me, "I must have paid a frightful price.
He would never have consented to interfere with Roebuck as soon as I asked
him to do it, unless there had been some powerful motive. If I had had my
wits about me, I could have made far better terms." Why hadn't I my wits
about me? "Anita" was my instant answer to my own question. "Anita again.
I had a bad attack of family man's panic." And thus it came about that I
went back to my own office, feeling as if I had suffered a severe defeat,
i