of sense--a
sense of honor. And I suspect and hope that he has at bottom common
sense too. Let him find her out for himself. Then, he'll be done with
her, and her kind, for good."

"I must marry him off as soon as possible," said Carlotta. "I'll look
about for some nice, quiet young girl with character and looks and
domestic tastes." She laughed a little bitterly. "You men can profit by
experience and it ruins us women."

"Unjust," said I, "but injustice and stupidity are the ground plan of
life."

We had not long to wait. The lady, as soon as Junior reached the end of
his cash, tried to open negotiations. Failing and becoming convinced
that he had been cast off by his parents, she threw aside her mask. One
straight look into her real countenance was enough for the boy. He fled
shuddering--but not to me as I had expected. Instead, he got a place as
a clerk in Chicago.

"Why not let him shift for himself a while?" suggested Woodruff, who
couldn't have taken more trouble about the affair if the boy had been
his own. "A man never knows whether his feet were made to stand on and
walk with, unless he's been down to his uppers."

"I think the boy's got his grandmother in him," said I. "Let's give him
a chance."

"He'll make a career for himself yet--like his father's," said
Woodruff.

That, with the sincerest enthusiasm. But instinctively I looked at him
for signs of sarcasm. And then I wondered how many "successful" men
would, in the same circumstances, have had the same curiously
significant instinct.

XXVIII

UNDER A CRAYON PORTRAIT

It was now less than a month before inauguration. Daily the papers gave
probable selections for the high posts under the approaching
administration; and, while many of them were attributed to my influence,
Roebuck's son as ambassador to Russia was the only one I even approved
of. As payments for the services of the plutocracy they were unnecessary
and foolishly lavish; as preparations for a renomination and reelection,
the two guiding factors in every plan of a President-elect, they were
preposterous. They were first steps toward an administration that would
make Scarborough's triumph inevitable, in spite of his handicap of
idealism.

I sent Woodruff west to find out what Burbank was doing about the places
I had pledged--all of them less "honorable" but more lucrative offices
which party workers covet. He returned in a few days with the news that,
according to the bes