e few demands upon him, and they were together only at
luncheon and dinner, the midday meal being usually served in their
suite, while for the dinner they met by appointment in the hotel _cafe_.

Notwithstanding this hospitable neglect on the part of his father, Evan
Blount suffered no lack of the social opportunities. Gantry was back,
and, in addition to a most ready availability as a social sponsor, the
traffic manager was both able and willing. Almost before he had time to
realize it, Blount had been put in touch with the busy, breezy life of
the Western city, was exchanging nods or hand-shakings with more people
than he had ever known in Cambridge or Boston, and was receiving more
invitations than he could possibly accept.

"Pretty good old town, isn't it?" laughed Gantry one day, when he had
tolled Blount away from the Inter-Mountain luncheon to share a table
with him in the Railway Club. "Getting so you feel a little more at home
with us?"

"If I'm not, it isn't your fault, Dick, or the fault of your friends.
Naturally, I expected some sort of a welcome as ex-Senator David
Blount's son; but that doesn't seem to cut any figure at all."

Gantry's smile was inscrutable.

"The people with whom it cuts the largest figure will never let you know
anything about it. Just the same, your sonship is cutting a good bit of
ice, if you care to know it. I've met a number of men in the past few
days who have discovered that you are just about the brainiest thing
that ever escaped from the effete East and the law schools."

"Tommy-rot!" derided the brainy one.

"It's a fact. And they are prophesying all sorts of a roseate and
iridescent future for you. One might almost imagine that the prophets
are inspired by that kind of gratitude which is a lively sense of favors
to come."

"Oh, piffle! You know that is all nonsense!"

"Is it?" queried the railroad man, stressing the first word meaningly.
Then, shifting the point of attack: "You're mighty innocent, aren't
you, old man? But I think you might have told me. Goodness knows, I'm as
safe as a brick wall."

"Might have told you what?"

"That you are going to run for attorney-general against Dortscher."

"I couldn't very well tell you what I didn't know myself, Dick," was the
sober reply. "Who has been romancing to you?"

"It's all over town. Everybody's talking about it--talking a lot and
guessing a good deal more. You've got 'em running around in circles and
uttering