ceding him in a special train of box cars,
especially invented for the transportation of Pennsylvania millions to
places where the first families congregate.

"And I had to confess that I'd never read one either. I did begin one,"
said West--"it was called 'Elementary Principles of Incidence and
Distribution,' I remember--but the hour was eleven-thirty and I fell
asleep."

"I know exactly how you felt about it," said Sharlee, "for I have read
them all--_moi!_"

He looked at her with boundless admiration. "His one reader!"

"There are two of us, if you please. I think of getting up a
club--Associated Sons and Daughters of Mr. Queed's Faithful Followers;
President, Me. I'll make the other member Secretary, for he is
experienced in that work. He's at present Secretary of the Tax Reform
League in New York. Did Colonel Cowles show you the wonderful letter
that came from him, asking the name of the man who was writing the
_Post's_ masterly tax articles, et cetera, et cetera?"

"No--really! But tell me, how have you, as President, enjoyed them?"

"I haven't understood a single word in any of them. Where on earth did
he dig up his fearful vocabulary? Yet it is the plain duty of both of us
to read these articles: you as one of his employers, I as the shrewd
landlady's agent who keeps a watchful eye upon the earning power of her
boarders."

West mused. "He has a wonderful genius for crushing all the interest out
of any subject he touches, hasn't he? Yet manifestly the first duty of
an editorial is to get itself read. How old do you think he is?"

"Oh--anywhere from twenty-five to--forty-seven."

"He'll be twenty-four this month. I see him sometimes at the office, you
know, where he still treats me like an intrusive subscription agent. In
some ways, he is undoubtedly the oldest man in the world. In another way
he hasn't any age at all. Spiritually he is unborn--he simply doesn't
exist at all. I diagnose his complaint as ingrowing egoism of a
singularly virulent variety."

It was beyond Sharlee's power to controvert this diagnosis. Mr. Queed
had in fact impressed her as the most frankly and grossly self-centred
person she had ever seen in her life. But unlike West, her uppermost
feeling in regard to him was a strong sense of pity. She knew things
about his life that West did not know and probably never would. For
though the little Doctor of Mrs. Paynter's had probably not intended to
give her a confidence, and certainly