ike a primer
book. Storri was excitable, volatile, full of fever and impulse, prone
to go off at tangents. In some stress of nerves he had sent for Mr.
Harley to urge expedition or ask for explanations. The thing had chanced
before. Mr. Harley would cool him into calmness with a dozen words.
Storri's poise restored, Mr. Harley would seek those speculative
statesmen, lusting for draw-poker. He should be with them by ten
o'clock--a ripe hour for cards. Mr. Harley would oppose poker in its
usual form and argue for table-stakes--five thousand dollars a corner.
Two of the speculative statesmen were not worth five thousand dollars.
So much the better; in case he were fortunate, Mr. Harley would accept
their paper. The last was to be preferred to money. Mr. Harley had many
irons of legislation in the congressional fires; a statesman's note of
hand should operate to pave the way when his influence and his vote were
to be asked for. Should Mr. Harley lose at poker, his losses would be
charged against that railroad and those coal companies whose interests
about Congress it was Mr. Harley's mission to conserve. There was no
doubt of the propriety of such charges; they belonged in any account
which was intended to register the cost of legislation. If you but stop
and think, you must see the truth of the above. Thus cantered the
cogitations of Mr. Harley until, fetching up at his journey's end, he
sent in his card to Storri.

At Mr. Harley's appearance, Storri's arm-tossing and raving ended
abruptly. He became oily and purringly suave, and bid Mr. Harley light a
cigar which he tendered. A cat will play with a mouse before coming to
the final kill; and there was a broad streak of the feline in Storri.
Now that his victim was within spring, he would play with him as
preliminary to the supreme joy of that last lethal crunch.

Following the usual salutations, Mr. Harley sat in peace and favor with
himself, waiting for Storri to begin. He would let Storri vent his
excitement, blow off steam, as Mr. Harley expressed it; and then he
would go about those calmative steps of explanation and assurance
suggested of the case.

Storri strode up and down, eying Mr. Harley with a mixed expression of
cruelty and triumph which, had Mr. Harley caught the picture of it,
might have made him feel uneasy. However, Mr. Harley was not looking at
Storri. He was thinking on ending the interview as quickly and
conveniently as he might, and hurrying posthast