Misses Henniker were not at home to Mr. Thomas Gordon; and
if Tom had known it, there were other and similar chastenings lying in
wait for him behind more of the colonial doors.

But Tom did not know it. He was in the crucial month of the panic year,
striving desperately to maintain the foothold given to him by the
pipe-casting invention, and he had little time for the amenities. So it
came about that he escaped for the moment; or, which was quite the same,
he did not know he was pursued. Another Northern city, with its full
complement of grafting officials, was in the market for some train-loads
of water-mains, and again Thomas Jefferson was fighting the old battle
of conscience against expediency, this time in the evil-smelling ditches
where the dead and wounded lie.

"You are sure you went into it thoroughly, Norman?" he demanded of his
lieutenant, when the latter returned from a personal reconnaissance of
the field. "The break they are making at us seems almost too rank to be
taken at its face value."

"Oh, yes; I dug it up from the bottom," said the henchman. "It's rotten
and riotous. The political machine runs the town, and the bosses own the
machine. So much to this one, so much to that, so much to half a dozen
others, and we get the contract. Otherwise, most emphatically _nit_."

"That comes straight, does it?"

"As straight as a shot out of a gun. They got together on it, eight of
the big bosses, called me in and told me flat-footed what we had to do,"
said the salesman. "Oh, I tell you, those fellows are on to their job."

"No chance to go behind the returns and stir up popular indignation, as
we did in Indiana?" suggested Tom.

"No show on top of earth. The ring owns or controls two of the dailies,
and has the other two scared. Besides, they've just had their municipal
election."

The Gordon-and-Gordon manager was absently jabbing holes in the desk
blotter with the paper-knife.

"Well, we can do what we have to, I suppose," he said, after a hesitant
pause. "Say nothing to my father, but make your arrangements to take the
train for the North again to-night. I'll meet you in town at the
Marlboro at four o'clock."

To prepare for the new exigency, Tom took the afternoon local for South
Tredegar. The lump sum required for the bribery was considerably in
excess of his balance in bank. Notwithstanding the stringency of the
times, he made sure he could borrow; but it was in some vague hope that
the moral