he object of
all civilization, and the Skerretts had discovered the methods. I must
dismiss the dinner and the evening, stamped with the general epithet,
Perfection.

"You will join us again to-morrow on the river," said Mrs. Skerrett, as
Wade rose to go.

"To-morrow I go to town to report to my Directors."

"Then next day."

"Next day, with pleasure."

Wade departed and marked this halcyon day with white chalk, as the
whitest, brightest, sweetest of his life.

CHAPTER X.

FOREBODINGS.

Jubilation! Jubilation now, instead of Consternation, in the office of
Mr. Benjamin Brummage in Wall Street.

President Brummage had convoked his Directors to hear the First
Semi-Annual Report of the new Superintendent and Dictator of Dunderbunk.

And there they sat around the green table, no longer forlorn and
dreading a, failure, but all chuckling with satisfaction over their
prosperity.

They were a happy and hilarious family now,--so hilarious that
the President was obliged to be always rapping to Order with his
paper-knife.

Every one of these gentlemen was proud of himself as a Director of so
successful a Company. The Dunderbunk advertisement might now consider
itself as permanent in the newspapers, and the Treasurer had very
unnecessarily inserted the notice of a dividend, which everybody knew of
already.

When Mr. Churm was not by, they all claimed the honor of having
discovered Wade, or at least of having been the first to appreciate him.

They all invited him to dinner,--the others at their houses, Sam Gwelp
at his club.

They had not yet begun to wax fat and kick. They still remembered
the panic of last summer. They passed a unanimous vote of the most
complimentary confidence in Wade, approved of his system, forced upon
him an increase of salary, and began to talk of "launching out" and
doubling their capital. In short, they behaved as Directors do when all
is serene.

Churm and Wade had a hearty laugh over the absurdities of the Board and
all their vague propositions.

"Dunderbunk," said Churm, "was a company started on a sentimental basis,
as many others are."

"Mr. Brummage fell in love with pig-iron?"

"Precisely. He had been a dry-goods jobber, risen from a retailer
somewhere in the country. He felt a certain lack of dignity in his work.
He wanted to deal in something more masculine than lace and ribbons. He
read a sentimental article on Iron in the 'Journal of Commerce': how
Iron held the