lf to the managing editor who had sent him to Costa
Rica, and he thought of doing this, but no, his--his father wanted the
secret kept until the time was ripe for its divulgence. He went into a
restaurant, and for the first time in his life he felt himself free to
order regardless of the prices on the bill of fare. Often, when a
hungry boy, he had sold newspapers in that house, and enviously he had
watched the man who seemed to care not for expenses. As he sat there
waiting for his meal, a newsboy came in, and after selling him a
paper, stood near the table.

"Sit down, little fellow, and have something to eat."

This was sarcasm, and the boy leered at him.

"Sit down, won't you?"

"What are you givin' me?"

"This," said Henry, and he handed him a dollar.

CHAPTER VI.

WAITING AT THE STATION.

Men bustling their way to the lunch counter; old women fidgeting in
the fear that they had forgotten something; man in blue crying the
destination of outgoing trains; weary mothers striving to soothe their
fretful children; the tumult raised by cabmen that were crowding
against the border-line of privilege; bells, shrieks, new harshnesses
here and there; confusion everywhere--a railway station in Chicago.

"The train ought to be here now," said George Witherspoon, looking at
his watch.

"Do you know exactly what train he is coming on?" his wife asked.

"Yes; he telegraphed again from Memphis."

"You didn't tell me you'd got another telegram."

"My dear, I thought I did. The truth is that I've been so rushed and
stirred up for the last day or so that I've hardly known what I was
about."

"And I can scarcely realize now what I'm waiting for," said a young
woman. "Mother, you look as if you haven't slept any for a week."

"And I don't feel as if I have."

George Witherspoon, holder of the decisive note in the affairs of that
great department store known as "The Colossus," may not by design have
carried an air that would indicate the man to whom small tradesman
regarded it as a mark of good breeding to cringe, but even in a place
where his name was not known his appearance would strongly have
appealed to commercial confidence. That instinct which in earlier life
had prompted fearless speculation, now crystalized into conscious
force, gave unconscious authority to his countenance. He was tall and
with so apparent a strength in his shoulders as to suggest the thought
that with them he had shoved his way to s