e old friends of yours. We're taking advantage of the convention of
western manufacturers to have a little reunion."

I now had a full view of the table. There was a silence that made the
creaking of starched evening shirt-bosoms noisy as those men drew long
stealthy breaths when breathing became imperative. All my "clients" and
Dominick--he at Roebuck's right. At Roebuck's left there was a vacant
chair. "Shall I sit here?" said I easily.

"That place was reserved--was for--but--" stammered Roebuck.

"For Granby's ghost?" said I pleasantly.

His big lips writhed. And as my glance of greeting to these old friends
of mine traveled down one side of the table and up the other, it might
have been setting those faces on fire, so brightly did they flare. It
was hard for me to keep my disgust beneath the surface. Those
"gentlemen" assembled there were among the "leading citizens" of my
state; and Roebuck was famous on both sides of the Atlantic as a king of
commerce and a philanthropist. Yet, every one of those brains was busy
most of its hours with assassin-like plottings--and for what purpose?
For ends so petty, so gross and stupid that it was inconceivable how
intelligence could waste life upon them, not to speak of the utter
depravity and lack of manliness. Liars cheats, bribers; and flaunting
the fruits of infamy as honors, as titles to respect, as gifts from
Almighty God! And here they were, assembled now for silly plottings
against the man whose only offense in their eyes was that he was saving
them from themselves--was preventing them from killing the goose that
would cheerfully keep on laying golden eggs for the privilege of
remaining alive. It was pitiful. It was nauseating. I felt my
degradation in stooping to such company.

I spoke to Dominick last. To my surprise he squarely returned my gaze.
His eyes were twinkling, as the eyes of a pig seem to be, if you look
straight into its face when it lifts its snout from a full trough.
Presently he could contain the huge volume of his mirth no longer. It
came roaring from him in a great coarse torrent, shaking his vast bulk
and the chair that sustained it, swelling the veins in his face,
resounding through the silent room while the waiters literally stood
aghast. At last he found breath to ejaculate: "Well, I'll be good
and--damned!"

This gale ripped from the others and whirled away their cloaks of
surface-composure. Naked, they suggested a lot of rats in a
trap--Do