the flickering
shadows, stroking Pepper's forehead.

CHAPTER VII

THE LEOPARD AND HIS SPOTS

It is difficult to overestimate the importance of Mr. Humphrey Crewe, of
his value to the town of Leith, and to the State at large, and in these
pages only a poor attempt at an appreciation of him may be expected. Mr.
Crewe by no means underestimated this claim upon the community, and he
had of late been declaring that he was no summer resident. Wedderburn was
his home, and there he paid his taxes. Undoubtedly, they were less than
city taxes.

Although a young man, Mr. Crewe was in all respects a model citizen, and
a person of many activities. He had built a farmers' club, to which the
farmers, in gross ingratitude, had never gone. Now it was a summer
residence and distinctly rentable. He had a standing offer to erect a
library in the village of Leith provided the town would furnish the
ground, the books, and permit the name of Crewe to be carved in stone
over the doorway. The indifference of the town pained him, and he was
naturally not a little grieved at the lack of proper feeling of the
country people of America towards those who would better their
conditions. He had put a large memorial window in the chapel to his
family.

Mr. Crewe had another standing offer to be one of five men to start a
farming experiment station--which might pay dividends. He, was a church
warden; president of a society for turning over crops (which he had
organized); a member of the State Grange; president of the embryo State
Economic League (whatever that was); and chairman of the Local
Improvement Board--also a creation of his own. By these tokens, and
others too numerous to mention, it would seem that the inhabitants of
Leith would have jumped at the chance to make such a man one of the five
hundred in their State Legislature.

To Whitman is attributed the remark that genius is almost one hundred per
cent directness, but whether or not this applied to Mr. Humphrey Crewe
remains to be seen. "Dynamics" more surely expressed him. It would not
seem to be a very difficult feat, to be sure, to get elected to a State
Legislature of five hundred which met once a year: once in ten years,
indeed, might have been more appropriate for the five hundred. The town
of Leith with its thousand inhabitants had one representative, and Mr.
Crewe had made up his mind he was to be that representative.

There was, needless to say, great excitement in Leit