e silently home.

"He came and talked with me," said Florence to her aunt that night. "He
was polite and kind, and didn't seem angry,--didn't say anything,
but--he went--he said he must go to his friends,--to his _friends_, do
you understand? We're no longer--no longer of them." Then she turned and
sought her own room.

And there was an invitation for Mr. Allison,--a very pressing
invitation, for an aide-de-camp delivered it personally,--a request that
Mr. Allison should be at head-quarters the next afternoon at four
o'clock; and Allison went. He was received by Captain Morris, who
expressed the general's regrets at being unable to see him in person,
and was ushered into a room where were Colonel Kenyon, Major Cranston,
and Lieutenant Forrest, still in service dress, and two of the senior
staff-officers. These latter came forward and shook hands with the
magnate, the others simply bowed.

"See if Mr. Elmendorf is anywhere about," said Captain Morris to a
messenger. But it was ten minutes before that intellectual party
appeared. The great strike had collapsed, the leaders were under the
indictment of the law, and this particular agitator's occupation, like
that of hundreds of his hapless dupes, was gone. Nevertheless it pleased
him to lurk about the neighborhood until fifteen minutes after the
appointed time, so that he might be the last to arrive and might thereby
keep the so-called upper classes waiting. The moment he arrived the
chief of staff proceeded to business.

"You set four o'clock as the time you would appear to make your charges,
Mr. Elmendorf, and we've been waiting here a quarter of an hour."

"Affairs of greater importance, sir, occupied my time."

"Oh, yes; our janitor tells us that you have been communing with
yourself over a glass of beer in the saloon across the way for the last
hour.--Gentlemen, I received a letter from Mr. Elmendorf yesterday
morning, which I will read:

"'SIR,--Having been informed that Mr. Warren Starkey, a clerk
in your employ, has been discharged because of his having been accused
of revealing to the press certain facts relative to the circumstances
under which Lieutenant Forrest was twice ordered away from Chicago, this
is to inform you that unless Mr. Starkey is immediately reinstated I
shall consider it my duty, as an accredited correspondent of numerous
newspapers of high repute, to publish all the facts in the case as well
known to me, and to demand the dismissal of