all
he distasted the notion of a limit. Like every wild thing, Storri shied
at a fence and loved the wilderness. While Storri knew nothing of
honesty, he preferred his gold on legitimate lines. This leaning towards
the lawful came not from any bias of probity; Storri simply wanted to be
safe, having a horror of chains and bolts and cages and striped
garments.

When Storri arrived in Washington, he came from Canada by way of New
York. The year before he had been in Paris, and was something--not for
long--of a figure on the Bourse. He had been in every capital of Asia
and Europe, and all the while his restless eye sleepless in its search
for money.

Gifted with an imagination, Storri evolved a scheme. Starting in
moderation, it grew with his wanderings until, link upon link, it became
endless and belted the earth. Storri's imagination was like a tar
barrel; accident might set fire to it, but once in the least of flame it
must burn on and on, with no power of self-extinguishment, until it
burned itself out. Or it was like him who, given a halter, straightway
takes a horse.

It is the theory of Europe that Americans are maniacs of money. European
conservatism draws a money-line beyond which it will not pass. When any
man of Europe has a proposal of business too big for the European
mouth--wearing its self-imposed half-muzzle of conservatism--that
promoter and his proposal head for America. It was this which gained
Washington the advantage of a visit from Storri; his stop in
Canada--being a six-months' stay in Ottawa--was only preliminary to his
coming here.

While his own people of Russia drew back from those enterprises which
Storri's agile imagination had in train, the government at St.
Petersburg, in what was perhaps a natural hope that he might find
Americans more reckless, endowed him as he came away with a guarded pat
on the back. The St. Petersburg government advised its representatives
in America to introduce without indorsing Storri.

Storri was by no means wise after the manner of a Franklin or a Humboldt
or a Herschel; but he did possess the deep sapiency of the serpent or
the fox. He owned inborn traits to steal and creep upon his prey of
money. Being in Washington, and looking up and down, he was quick to
note the strategic propriety of an alliance with Mr. Harley. Mr. Harley
had connections with American millionaires; most of all, he was the
_alter ego_ of a powerful congressional figure. Storri could