tiful bindings; it's
fine to know there are such fellows."

"Your words affect me strangely; I wrote the piece!"

"Now that is funny!" Allen glanced at Dan with frank admiration. "You
write well--praise from Sir Hubert--I scribble verses myself! So our
acquaintance really began a long time ago. It must have been last
October that we were at that place."

"Yes; it was in the fall sometime. It's pleasant to know that anything
printed in a newspaper is ever remembered so long. Bassett is an
interesting man all right enough."

"It must be bully to meet men like that--the men who have a hand in the
big things. I must get dad to introduce me. I suppose you know
everybody!" he ended admiringly.

They retraced their steps through the silent house and down to the front
door, continuing their talk. As Dan turned for their last words on the
veranda steps he acted on an impulse and said:--

"Have supper with me to-morrow night--we won't call it dinner--at the
Whitcomb House. I'll meet you in the lobby at six o'clock. The honorable
state committee is in town and I'll point out some of the moulders of
our political destiny. They're a joy to the eye, I can tell you!"

Allen's eager acquiescence, his stumbling, murmured thanks, emphasized
Dan's sense of the forlorn life young Thatcher had described.

* * * * *

"So the old boy's skipped, has he?" demanded the city editor. "Well,
that's one on us! Who put you on?"

"I kept at the bell until the door opened and then I saw Thatcher's son.
He told me."

"Oh, the family idiot let you in, did he? Then there's no telling
whether it's true or not. He's nutty, that fellow. Didn't know he was
here."

"I believe he told me the truth. His father's on his way to New York."

"Well, that sounds definite; but it doesn't make any difference now.
We've just had a tip to let the deal alone. For God's sake, keep at the
law, Harwood; this business is hell." The city editor bit a fat cigar
savagely. "You no sooner strike a good thing and work on it for two days
than you butt into a dead wall. What? No; there's nothing more for you
to-night."

CHAPTER IX

DANIEL HARWOOD RECEIVES AN OFFER

A brief note from Morton Bassett, dated at Fraserville, reached Harwood
in July. In five lines Bassett asked Dan to meet him at the Whitcomb
House on a day and hour succinctly specified.

Harwood had long since exhausted the list of Hoosier statesmen selected
for