ut I
cannot but think the executive chamber of the capitol of Alleghenia a
singular place for it to be mentioned."

The Governor held up his hand.

"You misunderstand me," he said. "One would suppose I had offered you a
purse! I mean simply that the popularity of the man who averts this
strike will be an assured fact. He would be the idol of the working
people, and hardly less esteemed by the element of capital. Moreover, he
would be doing a humane and merciful thing. You are the only man who is
in a position to approach Rathbawne, and, if you will excuse the
suggestion, I think you can hardly afford to throw away the chance. As
it is, you--er--you are not what might be called popular, Mr. Barclay."

This time the silence was broken by a single sharp little
click--the latch of the connecting door slipping into place. The
Lieutenant-Governor sank slowly into his revolving chair, tipped back,
swung round a half circle, and stared out disconsolately over the
sloping lawns of the capitol grounds, mottled with thin patches of
snow.

II

THE ODDS AGAINST YOUNG NISBET

Young Nisbet leaned forward in his chair.

"And I've been thinking," he added, "that perhaps--that perhaps"--

"That perhaps what?" asked the junior Miss Rathbawne, leaning forward in
hers.

"If I don't have tea _instantly_," said her mother, with profound
conviction, as she came ponderously through the portieres, tugging at
her gloves, "I shall expire! How de do, Mr. Nisbet. _Do_ sit up
straight, Dorothy, my dear."

She sank heavily into a low chair, which brought her within the radius
of lamp-light at the tea-table, and was thus revealed as a lady of
generous proportions, with a conspicuous absence of features, and no
observable lap. In speaking, she displayed a marked partiality for undue
emphasis. Sublimely unconscious of the depression induced by her
advent, she continued to talk, as she pulled off her gloves, which were
a size too small, and came away with reluctance, leaving imprints of the
stitching on her pudgy pink hands.

Young Nisbet surveyed her with a kind of mute despair. He was a very
average young American, very conventionally in love, and the trifling
remnant of self-assertiveness which had triumphed over the crescent
humility natural to his condition inevitably evaporated into thin air at
the approach of Mrs. Rathbawne; and always, as he was doing now, he
turned in his toes excessively when she was present, hitched at hi