glected to mention, but Bean thought you might as well
chew tobacco and be done with it. Moreover, the cigars were not such as
one would have expected to find between the lips of a man whose present
wealth was estimated at a round hundred million. Bulger, in the outer
office, had given up trying to smoke them. He declared them to be the
very worst that could be had for any money.

Before beginning the transcription of his notes, Bean had to learn the
latest telephone news from the ball-ground. During the last half-hour he
had inwardly raged more than usual at Breede for being kept from this
information. Bulger always managed to get it on time, beginning with the
third inning, even when he took dictation from Breede's confidential
secretary, or from Tully, the chief clerk.

Bean looked inquiringly at Bulger now. Bulger nodded and presently
strolled from his own desk to Bean's, where he left a slip of paper
bearing the words, "Cubs, 3; Giants, 2; 1st 1/2 4th."

Bean had envied Bulger from the first for this man-of-the-world ease. In
actual person not superior to Bean, he had a temperament of daring. In
every detail he was an advanced dresser, specializing in flamboyant
cravats. He would have been Bean's model if Bean had been less a coward.
Bulger was nearly all that Bean wished to be. He condescended to his
tasks with an air of elegant and detached leisure that raised them to
the dignity of sports. He had quite the air of a wealthy amateur with a
passion for typewriting.

He had once done Breede's personal work, but had been banished to the
outer office after Bean's first try-out. Breede had found some
mysterious objection to him. Perhaps it was because Bulger would always
look up with pleased sagacity, as if he were helping to compose Breede's
letters. It may have been simple envy in Breede for his advanced
dressing. Bulger had felt no unkindness toward Bean for thus supplanting
him in a desirable post. But he did confide to his successor that if he,
Bulger, ever found Breede under his heel, Breede could expect no mercy.
Bulger would grind him--just like that!

Bean dramatized this as he wrote his letters; Breede pleasantly
disintegrating under the iron heel of Bulger: Breede "The Great
Reorganizer," as he was said to be known "in the Street," old "steel and
velvet," meeting a just fate! So nearly mechanical was his typewriting
that he spoiled one sheet of paper by transcribing two lines of
shorthand not meant to b