ng were in the act of closing. Many of them were already
deserted. At every instant, through the open door of the ante-room,
he caught a glimpse of clerks, office boys, book-keepers, and other
employees hurrying towards the stairs and elevators, quitting business
for the day. Shelgrim, it seemed, still remained at his desk, knowing no
fatigue, requiring no leisure.

"What time does Mr. Shelgrim usually go home?" inquired Presley of the
young man who sat ruling forms at the table in the ante-room.

"Anywhere between half-past six and seven," the other answered, adding,
"Very often he comes back in the evening."

And the man was seventy years old. Presley could not repress a murmur of
astonishment. Not only mentally, then, was the President of the P. and
S. W. a giant. Seventy years of age and still at his post, holding there
with the energy, with a concentration of purpose that would have wrecked
the health and impaired the mind of many men in the prime of their
manhood.

But the next instant Presley set his teeth.

"It is an ogre's vitality," he said to himself. "Just so is the
man-eating tiger strong. The man should have energy who has sucked the
life-blood from an entire People."

A little electric bell on the wall near at hand trilled a warning. The
young man who was ruling forms laid down his pen, and opening the
door of the President's office, thrust in his head, then after a word
exchanged with the unseen occupant of the room, he swung the door wide,
saying to Presley:

"Mr. Shelgrim will see you, sir."

Presley entered a large, well lighted, but singularly barren office. A
well-worn carpet was on the floor, two steel engravings hung against the
wall, an extra chair or two stood near a large, plain, littered table.
That was absolutely all, unless he excepted the corner wash-stand,
on which was set a pitcher of ice water, covered with a clean, stiff
napkin. A man, evidently some sort of manager's assistant, stood at the
end of the table, leaning on the back of one of the chairs. Shelgrim
himself sat at the table.

He was large, almost to massiveness. An iron-grey beard and a mustache
that completely hid the mouth covered the lower part of his face. His
eyes were a pale blue, and a little watery; here and there upon his face
were moth spots. But the enormous breadth of the shoulders was what, at
first, most vividly forced itself upon Presley's notice. Never had
he seen a broader man; the neck, however, se