And only to think, day before yesterday, I didn't think of the
trains at all."

To have one look like that from a woman! To carry it with him! Henderson
still forgot to light his cigar.

"Hello, Rodney!"

"Ah, Hollowell! I thought you were in Kansas City."

The new-comer was a man of middle age, thick set, with rounded shoulders,
deep chest, heavy neck, iron-gray hair close cut, gray whiskers cropped
so as to show his strong jaw, blue eyes that expressed at once resolution
and good-nature.

"Well, how's things? Been up to fix the Legislature?"

"No; Perkins is attending to that," said Henderson, rather indifferently,
like a man awakened out of a pleasant dream. "Don't seem to need much
fixing. The public are fond of parallels."

Hollowell laughed. "I guess that's so--till they get 'em."

"Or don't get them," Henderson added. And then both laughed.

"It looks as if it would go through this time. Bemis says the C. D.'s
badly scared. They'll have to come down lively."

"I shouldn't wonder. By-the-way, look in tomorrow. I've got something to
show you."

Henderson lit his cigar, and they both puffed in silence for some
moments.

"By-the-way, did I ever show you this?" Hollowell took from his
breast-pocket a handsome morocco case, and handed it to his companion. "I
never travel without that. It's better than an accident policy."

Henderson unfolded the case, and saw seven photographs--a showy-looking
handsome woman in lace and jewels, and six children, handsome like their
mother, the whole group with the photographic look of prosperity.

Henderson looked at it as if it had been a mirror of his own destiny, and
expressed his admiration.

"Yes, it's hard to beat," Hollowell confessed, with a soft look in his
face. "It's not for sale. Seven figures wouldn't touch it." He looked at
it lovingly before he put it up, and then added: "Well, there's a figure
for each, Rodney, and a big nest-egg for the old woman besides. There's
nothing like it, old man. You'd better come in." And he put his hand
affectionately on Henderson's knee.

Jeremiah Hollowell--commonly known as Jerry--was a remarkable man. Thirty
years ago he had come to the city from Maine as a "hand" on a coast
schooner, obtained employment in a railroad yard, then as a freight
conductor, gone West, become a contractor, in which position a lucky hit
set him on the road of the unscrupulous accumulation of property. He was
now a railway magnate, the presid