I'd like to--"

"Yes, all right, of course," interrupted Madison, grinning. "Good-by,
that's all--I'm off--see, they're waiting for me"--and leaving Helena
with an outraged little flush upon her cheek, he hurried through the
door after the others.

--XIV--

KNOTTING THE STRINGS

It is a very old saying, and therefore of course indisputably true, that
some have greatness thrust upon them. True of men, it is, in one
instance at least, true of places--Needley, from an unheard of, modest,
innocuous and unassuming little hamlet, leaped in a flash into the focus
of the world's eyes. In huge headlines the papers in every city of every
State carried it on their front pages. And while the first astounding
despatch from the metropolitan newspaper man was being copied by leading
dailies everywhere, there came on top of it, clinching its veracity
beyond possibility of doubt, the news that Robert Thornton, the well
known Chicago multi-millionaire, had given fifty thousand dollars to the
cause. A man, much less a multi-millionaire, does not give fifty
thousand dollars for a bubble, so the managing editors of the leading
dailies rushed for their star reporters--and the star reporters rushed
for Needley--and the red-haired, sorrowful-faced man in the Needley
station grew haggard, tottered on the verge of collapse, and, between
the sheafs of flimsy that the reporters fought for the opportunity of
pushing at him, wired desperately for a relief.

Needley awoke and came to life--as from the dead. There was bustle,
activity, and suppressed and unsuppressed excitement on every hand--the
Waldorf Hotel once more opened its doors--the Congress Hotel was already
full.

The reporters interviewed everybody with but one exception--the
Patriarch.

They interviewed Madison--and Madison talked to them gravely, quietly, a
little self-deprecatingly, a little abashed at the thought of personal
exploitage.

"I wouldn't be interviewed at all," he told them, "if it were not that
mankind at large is entitled to every bit of evidence that can be
obtained. Yes; I gave what I could afford, but it was Holmes, a poor
man, who gave most of all--have you seen him? Myself? What does that
matter? I am unknown, my personality, unlike Mr. Thornton's, can carry
no weight. I am, I suppose, what you might call a rolling stone, a world
wanderer. My parents left me a moderate fortune, and I have travelled
pretty well and pretty constantly all over the wo