ting our fingers on their allotments, however; Mr. Rogers
commenting in his sage and caustic way on men and politics. It was
growing late, and at a natural stopping-place in our talk I sent for
paper and string, with my own hands tied up the book, and--with all the
airs of extreme leisureliness--literally bolted.

No school-boy with a three-pound trout caught in a deep hole under a big
willow bearing the sign, "Any one fishing here will be prosecuted," no
burglar with an unexpected fat swag, was ever in such a fever to lug his
booty to a concealed place as I to get that infinitely precious bundle
to the Waldorf. At last I landed it in my room and began to scan the
interesting pages. My first thought was to look for our own big dummy
subscription. As I supposed, it was not there. _Roughly I added the
totals of the different sheets and compared them, with the 412 millions
we had given the public, which was now indelibly, the world over, a
matter of record._ Again I stopped to congratulate myself on my good
fortune in securing this first-hand evidence of the fraud that had been
practised on the people.

I leaned over the thick pages with their various inscriptions. The names
and addresses carried me into every corner of the United States and into
the great cities of Europe as well. Set down there were towns and
villages I had never heard of, and my mind made pictures for me of
fathers, mothers, and children, beguiled by my pledges and promises,
embracing the opportunity to add to their scanty hordes. But it was not
a moment to indulge in scares, so I slipped over the people's mites and
fixed my mind on the millions.

The Lewisohns were down for eleven millions, and Mr. Rogers' old
cronies, John Moore's firm, were represented by a subscription of
between six and seven millions. As I ran over the names I found million
after million down to Mr. Rogers' friends, which told me that he had
spared no one. All the lieutenants and the queer people who do the
confidential business of the "System," and invariably turn up at
melon-cutting time, were down for round amounts. Conspicuous among the
rest was the name of that rising votary of the "System" who won
notoriety, while Comptroller of the Currency under President Cleveland,
as manipulator of the slick bond deal which has gone into American
history as among the queerest performances of its period. Loaded up with
Government banking secrets, this young man subsequently became a pri