ed
with pounds of yellow hair in which glittered rhinestone buckles. Hair
of every sort and shade and length was clustered about her, as if she
were the presiding genius of some barbarian scalping-cult. Seen at
that hour, in the pale luster of the flashlight, this sorry plunder of
lost teeth and dead hair made upon one a melancholy impression,
disparaging to humanity. I had scant time to moralize on hair and
teeth, however, for Flint was stopping before a door the neat brass
plate of which bore upon it:

_Mr. Inglesby_.

Mr. Inglesby had a desk downstairs in the bank, in the little pompous
room marked "President's Office," where at stated hours and times he
presided grandly; just as he had a big bare office at the mills, where
he was rather easy of access, willing to receive any one who might
chance to catch him in. But these rooms we were entering without
permission were the sanctum sanctorum, the center of that wide web
whose filaments embraced and ensnared the state. It would be about as
easy to stroll casually into the Vatican for an informal chat with the
Holy Father, to walk unannounced into the presence of the Dalai Lama,
or to drop in neighborly on the Tsar of all the Russias, as to
penetrate unasked into these offices during the day.

We stepped upon the velvet square of carpet covering the floor of what
must have once been a very handsome guest chamber and was now a very
handsome private office. One had to respect the simple and solid
magnificence of the mahogany furnishings, the leather-covered chairs,
the big purposeful desk. Above the old-fashioned marble mantel hung a
life-sized portrait in oils of Inglesby himself. The artist had done
his sitter stern justice--one might call the result retribution; and
one wondered if Inglesby realized how immensely revealing it was.
There he sat, solid, successful, informed with a sort of brutal
egotism that never gives quarter. In despite of a malevolent
determination to look pleasant, his smile was so much more of a threat
than a promise that one could wish for his own sake he had scowled
instead. He is a throaty man, is Inglesby; and this, with an
uncompromising squareness of forehead, a stiffness of hair, and a
hard hint of white in the eyes, lent him a lowering likeness to an
unpedigreed bull.

John Flint cast upon this charming likeness one brief and pregnant
glance.

"Regular old Durham shorthorn, isn't he?" he commented in a low voice.
"Wants to