you?"

Captain Cy was leaning back in his chair. He was as white as the
tablecloth.

"Are you ill?" asked the congressman anxiously. "Take some water. Shall
I call--"

The captain waved his hand.

"No, no!" he stammered. "No! I'm all right. Do you--for the Lord's sake
tell me this! What was the name of this partner that died?"

Mr. Everdean looked curiously at his friend before he answered.

"Sure you're not sick?" he asked. "Well, all right. The partner's name?
Why, I've heard it often enough. It's on the deed of sale that father
has framed in his room at home. The old gentleman is as proud of that as
anything in the house. The name was--was--"

"For God sakes," cried Captain Cy, "don't say 'twas John Thayer! 'Cause
if you do I shan't believe it."

"That's what it was--John Thayer. How did you guess? Did you know him? I
remember now that he was another Down Easter, like Atkins."

The captain did not answer. He clasped his forehead with both hands and
leaned his elbows on the table. Everdean was plainly alarmed.

"I'm going to call a doctor," he began, rising. But Captain Cy waved him
back again.

"Set still!" he ordered. "Set still, I tell you! You say the whole
seventy-five thousand was paid to Heman, but that John Thayer signed
the bill of sale afore he died, as half partner? And your dad's got the
original deed and--and--he remembers the whole business?"

"Yes, he's got the deed--framed. It's on record, too, of course.
Remembers? I should say he did! He'll talk for a week on that subject,
if you give him a chance."

The captain sprang to his feet. His chair tipped backward and fell to
the floor. An obsequious waiter ran to right it, but Captain Cy paid no
attention to him.

"Where's my coat?" he demanded. "Where's my coat and hat?"

"What ails you?" asked Everdean. "Are you going crazy?"

"Goin' CRAZY? No, no! I'm goin' to California. When's the next train?"

CHAPTER XIX

THE TOPPLING OF A MONUMENT

The Honorable Heman Atkins sat in the library of his Washington home,
before a snapping log fire, reading a letter. Mr. Atkins had, as he
would have expressed it, "served his people" in Congress for so many
years that he had long since passed the hotel stage of living at the
Capital. He rented a furnished house on an eminently respectable street,
and the polished doorplate bore his name in uncompromising characters.

The library furniture was solid and dignified. Its businesslike
appearanc