tling's room.

"Look here," he began, as soon as the office-boy had closed the door
behind him, "this is going it a little too strong."

"What is?" I asked, leaning back in my chair and surveying him.

"This proposed Maplewood Avenue Franchise. Hugh," he said, "you and I
have been friends a good many years, Lucia and I are devoted to Maude."

I did not reply.

"I've seen all along that we've been growing apart," he added sadly.
"You've got certain ideas about things which I can't share. I suppose I'm
old fashioned. I can't trust myself to tell you what I think--what Tom
and I think about this deal."

"Go ahead, Perry," I said.

He got up, plainly agitated, and walked to the window. Then he turned to
me appealingly.

"Get out of it, for God's sake get out of it, before it's too late. For
your own sake, for Maude's, for the children's. You don't realize what
you are doing. You may not believe me, but the time will come when these
fellows you are in with will be repudiated by the community,--their money
won't help them. Tom and I are the best friends you have," he added, a
little irrelevantly.

"And you think I'm going to the dogs."

"Now don't take it the wrong way," he urged.

"What is it you object to about the Maplewood franchise?" I asked. "If
you'll look at a map of the city, you'll see that development is bound to
come on that side. Maplewood Avenue is the natural artery, somebody will
build a line out there, and if you'd rather have eastern capitalists--"

"Why are you going to get this franchise?" he demanded. "Because we
haven't a decent city charter, and a healthy public spirit, you fellows
are buying it from a corrupt city boss, and bribing a corrupt board of
aldermen. That's the plain language of it. And it's only fair to warn you
that I'm going to say so, openly."

"Be sensible," I answered. "We've got to have street railroads,--your
family has one. We know what the aldermen are, what political conditions
are. If you feel this way about it, the thing to do is to try to change
them. But why blame me for getting a franchise for a company in the only
manner in which, under present conditions, a franchise can be got? Do you
want the city to stand still? If not, we have to provide for the new
population."

"Every time you bribe these rascals for a franchise you entrench them,"
he cried. "You make it more difficult to oust them. But you mark my
words, we shall get rid of them some day, and when tha