ver. If a real rival succeeded in getting
a Government subsidy for a transportation line in which he had no
share, his procedure was always the same; he began the construction or
equipment of a rival line until they bought him off by a big payment of
monthly blackmail. His income from blackmail alone was frequently more
than a million a year. His sons are fine fellows and doubled the old
man's millions in bigger, cleaner ways, as I've doubled mine. But it
gives me a pain when these men begin to nose around; inquiring about my
early history."

"Well, Cal," Stuart broke in with a laugh, "the one thing I like about
you is that you have never been ashamed of your humble origin."

"Still I'm not without my weak spot, even there, Jim," the little man
said, with an accent of pain that startled Stuart.

"What do you mean?"

"You see that bunch of newspaper reporters over there? They are the
ghosts that haunt my dreams. Oh, not what they'll say in their dirty
papers. We can control that, we own them. But there's a magazine
muckraker among them. He has nosed his way in here to-night as a
reporter, for some devilish purpose. He has been down in North
Carolina, moving heaven and earth to find my poor old father and mother
and get under my hide with a biographical sketch. He has written a
volume of lies about them already--but list, here's another one of the
great ones you must know, old Grantly, the proud possessor of a fortune
made in the services of the Nation for the nominal consideration of
fifty per cent. profit, a typical Civil War nabob."

Bivens bowed with exaggerated courtesy to the great man, introduced him
and said with a quiet sneer:

"The kind that makes me really sick is the patriotic poser. I suppose
it was because my dad wasn't a very brave soldier." He laughed quietly.
"Remember the day you knocked those brutes down at college for forcing
me to make a speech in praise of my father's heroism? I could have died
for you that day, Jim."

"Oh, that was nothing," Stuart protested lightly.

"To you, maybe, but to me--well, as I was saying, the great man who
just passed is very proud, not only because he is a multi-millionaire
but because his house is supposed to be one of the pillars of the
Nation. The truth is that during the Civil War he formed a 'Union
Defense Committee' and raised funds to carry on the war.
Incidentally--quite incidentally, of course--he got contracts for
supplies from the Government and mad