een filed at
four o'clock--several hours later than the newspaper despatches. It
said that Scarborough's friends conceded his defeat, that the
Legislature was safely Dumont's way in both houses. Culver always
sorted out to present first the agreeable part of the morning's budget;
never had he been more successful.

At the office Dumont found another cipher telegram from Merriweather:
"Later returns show Scarborough elected by a narrow majority. But he
will be powerless as Legislature and all other state offices are with
us."

Dumont crushed the telegram in his hand. "Powerless--hell!" he
muttered. "Does he think I'm a fool?" He had spent three hundred
thousand dollars to "protect" his monopoly in its home; for it was
under Indiana laws, as interpreted by Dumont's agents in public office,
that the main or holding corporation of his group was organized. And
he knew that, in spite of his judges and his attorney-general and his
legislative lobby and his resourceful lawyers and his subsidized
newspapers, a governor of Scarborough's courage and sagacity could
harass him, could force his tools in public office to activity against
him, might drive him from the state. Heretofore he had felt, and had
been, secure in the might of his millions. But now-- He had a feeling
of dread, close kin to fear, as he measured this peril, this man strong
with a strength against which money and intrigue were as futile as bow
and arrow against rifle.

He opened the door into the room where his twenty personal clerks were
at work. They glanced at his face, winced, bent to their tasks. They
knew that expression: it meant "J. D. will take the hide off every one
who goes near him to-day."

"Tell Mr. Giddings I want to see him," he snapped, lifting the head of
the nearest clerk with a glance like an electric shock.

The clerk rose, tiptoed away to the office of the first vice-president
of the Woolens Trust. He came tiptoeing back to say in a faint,
deprecating voice: "Mr. Giddings isn't down yet, sir."

Dumont rolled out a volley of violent language about Giddings. In his
tantrums he had no more regard for the dignity of his chief
lieutenants, themselves rich men and middle-aged or old, than he had
for his office boys. To the Ineffable Grand Turk what noteworthy
distinction is there between vizier and sandal-strapper?

"Send him in--quick,--you, as soon as he comes," he shouted in
conclusion. If he had not paid generously, if h