any more straightforward things: "Tell me, Mr. Ford; are
you really going to find something to interest brother?--something that
will keep him actually and enthusiastically busy for more than a few
days at a time?"

Ford laughed. "I fancy he hasn't been bored for the lack of work since I
left New York, has he?"

"No; and it has made such a difference! Won't you please try and keep
him going?"

"You may rest assured that I shall do what I can. But you see he has
quit already."

"By coming to Chicago with us? Oh, no, indeed; you are quite mistaken.
He is here to help you to--to 'minimize' Uncle Sidney; I think that is
the word he used. He was afraid you had been finding Uncle Sidney rather
difficult. Have you?"

"I have, for a fact," said Ford, out of the depths of sincerity. And,
again out of a full heart: "Your brother is a brick, Miss Adair."

"Isn't he?" and she laughed in sheer good comradeship. "If you can only
manage to make him rise to his capabilities--"

"He'll never be able to live the simple life for a single waking hour,"
said the engineer, finishing the sentence for her.

"Oh, but that is a mistake!" she objected. "The very first requirement
is work; plenty of work of the kind one can do best."

The short walk to the hotel, where Kenneth was waiting to go to
breakfast with the president's party, came to an end, and the social
amenities died of inanition. For one thing, President Colbrith insisted
upon learning the minutest ins and outs of the business matter, making
the table-talk his vehicle; and for another, Miss Adair's place was on
the opposite side of the table, and two removes from Ford's. Time and
again the young engineer tried to side-track business in the interests
of something a little less banal to the two women; but the president was
implacable and refused to be pulled out of the narrow rut of details;
was still running monotonously and raspingly in it when Kenneth glanced
at his watch and suggested that the time for action was come.

After breakfast the party separated. Mrs. Adair and Miss Alicia were to
spend the day with friends in South Chicago, and Mr. Colbrith carried
the attorney off to his room to dig still deeper into the possible legal
complications which might arise out of the proposed transfer of the
three short roads. Ford and Adair sat in the lobby and smoked while they
were waiting for the president and the general counsel to conclude their
conference, and the young mi