ss to the City every morning. He brought
up to the station in the smart trap, the liveried coachman, with the
mute majesty of his kind, throned upon the front seat. Sometimes one
of Carroll's daughters, as delicately gay as a flower in her light
daintiness of summer attire, was with him. Often the boy, with his
outlook of innocent impudence, sat beside the coachman. Carroll
himself was always irreproachably clad in the very latest of the
prevailing style. Had he not been such a masterly figure of a man, he
would have been open to the charge of dandyism. He was always gloved;
he even wore a flower in the lapel of his gray coat. He carried
always, whatever the state of the weather, an eminent umbrella with a
carved-ivory handle. He equipped himself with as many newspapers from
the stand as would an editor of a daily paper. The other men drew
conclusions that it was highly necessary for him to study the state
of the market and glean the truth from the various reports.

One morning Henry Lee was also journeying to the City on the
eight-o'clock train. He held a $2500 position in a publisher's
office, and felt himself as good as any man in Banbridge, with the
possible exception of this new-comer, and he accosted him with regard
to his sheaf of newspapers.

"Going to have all the news there is?" he inquired, jocularly.

Carroll looked up and smiled and nodded. "Well, yes," he replied. "I
find this my only way--read them all and strike an average. There is
generally a kernel of truth in each."

"That's so," said Lee.

Carroll glanced speculatively at the ostentatiously squared shoulders
of the other man as he passed through the car.

When the train reached Jersey City, Carroll, leaving his newspapers
fluttering about the seat he had occupied, passed off the train and
walked with his air of careless purpose along the platform.

"This road is a pretty poorly conducted concern," said a voice behind
him, and Lee came up hurriedly and joined him.

"Yes," replied Carroll, tentatively. His was not the order of mind
which could realize its own aggrandizement by wholesale criticism of
a great railroad system for the sake of criticism, and, moreover, he
had a certain pride and self-respect about maintaining the majesty of
that which he must continue to patronize for his own ends.

"Yes," said Lee, moving, as he spoke, with a sort of accelerated
motion like a strut. He was a much shorter man than Carroll, and he
made futile hop