the world as he finds it, and cleverly utilizes the foibles of
his fellow-men. The supervisor-general is a sort of personification of
public opinion. He is always correct, professes to believe what others
believe, and conforms from prudent calculation to the religious customs
of the community. He demands of his son Frederic that he shall abandon a
young girl whom he loves and has seduced, and he requires of his
daughter Karen that she shall, out of regard for her family, renounce
her lover. He feigns all proper sentiments and emotions, while under
the smooth, agreeable mask lurk malice and cunning. When Hans Kampe's
book reaches him, it never occurs to him to examine it on its merits;
his only thought is to make it harmless by inventing a scandalous
motive. The elder Kampe has just resigned from the railway service; the
supervisor-general (with infamous shrewdness) demands an official
inquiry into the state of his accounts. Then all the world will say that
Hans Kampe has been used as a cat's-paw by his father, who, knowing that
an investigation is inevitable, wishes to throw dust in the eyes of the
public and save his own reputation by attacking that of his superior. It
is needless to say that he has not a shadow of suspicion regarding
Kampe's honesty, but merely chooses for his own defence the weapon which
he knows to be the most effective.

In order to fortify his position and sound the sentiment of the
profession, Riis gives a grand dinner to the engineers of the city, to
which Kampe and his son are also invited. The chairman of the committee
on railways (of the national diet) is present, and when it appears that
Hans Kampe makes a favorable impression upon him, the friends of Riis
concoct a scheme to injure him. They inform his father that he is
suspected of embezzlement, and get him drunk, whereupon the old man
scandalizes the company by a burst of uncomplimentary candor. When Hans
arrives the mischief is done; though the pathetic scene between father
and son convinces the chairman that, whatever their failings, these men
are true and genuine. Simply delicious is the satire in the scene where
the ladies discuss the question at issue between Riis and Kampe. But
this satire is deprived of much of its force by the subsequent
development of the plot. The logical ending would seem to be the triumph
of the supervisor-general's defensive tactics and the discomfiture of
his critics. That would have given point to the criti