In the privacy of Senator Corson's study Mr. Daunt had allowed himself to raise his voice and express some decided opinions by the way of venting his emotions.

In his heat he disregarded the amenities that should govern a guest in the presence of his host. In fact, Mr. Daunt asserted that the host was partly responsible for the awkward position in which Mr. Daunt found himself.

The Senator, whenever he was able to make himself heard, put in protesting "buts." Mr. Daunt, riding his grievance wildly, hurdled every "but" and kept right on. "Confound it, Corson, I accepted him as your friend, as your guest, as a gentleman under the roof of a mutual friend. Most of all, I accepted him as a safe and sane business man. I talked to him as I would to the gentlemen who put their feet under my table. I know how to be cautious in the case of men I meet in places of business. But you bring this man to your house and you put me next to him with the assurance that he is all right—and I go ahead with him on that basis. I was perfectly and entirely honest with him. I disregarded all the rules that govern me in ordinary business offices," the banker added, too excited to appreciate the grim humor flashed by the flint and the steel of his last, juxtaposed sentences.

"You say you told him all your plans in full?" suggested Corson, referring to the outburst with which Daunt began his arraignment of the situation.

"Of course I told him! You gave me no warning. I dealt with him, gentleman with gentleman, under your roof!"

"I didn't think it was necessary to counsel a man like you about the ordinary prudence required in all business matters."

"I had his word in his own office that he was heartily with me. You told me he was as square as a brick when it came to his word. I went on that basis, Corson!"

"I'm sorry," admitted the Senator. "I thought I knew Stewart through and through. But I haven't been keeping in touch as closely as I ought. I have heard things this evening—" He hesitated.

"You have heard things—and still you allowed me to go on and empty my basket in front of him?"

"I heard 'em only after you were closeted here with him, Daunt. And I can't believe it's as bad as it has been represented to me. And even as it stands, I think I know how to handle him. I have already taken steps to that end."

"How?"

"Please accept my say-so for the time being, Daunt! It isn't a matter to be canvassed between us."

"I suppose you learn that sort of reticence in politics, even in the case of a friend, Corson," growled the banker. "I wish I had taken a few lessons from you before talking with one of your friends this evening."

"Was it necessary for you to do so much talking before you got a line on his opinions?"

"Confound it, Corson, with that face of his—with that candor in his countenance—he looks as good and reliable as a certified check—and in addition I had your indorsement of him."

"I felt that I had a right to indorse him." The Senator showed spirit.
"Daunt, I don't like to hear you condemn Stewart Morrison so utterly."

"Not utterly! He has qualities of excellence! For instance, he's a damnation fine listener," stated the disgusted banker.

"But he couldn't have thrown down your whole proposition—he couldn't have done that, after the prospects you held out to him, as you outlined them to me when we first discussed the matter," Corson insisted. "Morrison has a good business head on him. He comes of business stock. He has made a big success of his mill. He must be on the watch for more opportunities. All of us are."

"Well, here was the offer I made to him, seeing that he is a friend of yours," said Banker Daunt, dilating his nostrils when he dwelt on the word "friend." "I offered to double his own appraisal of his properties when we pay him in the preferred stock of the consolidation. I told him that he would receive, like the others, an equal amount of common stock for a bonus. I assured him that we would be able to pay dividends on the common. And he asked me particularly if I was certain that dividends would be paid on the common. I gave him that assurance as a financier who knows his card." Daunt had been attempting to curb his passion and talk in a business man's tone while on the matter of figures. But he abandoned the struggle to keep calm. He cracked his knuckles on the table and shouted: "But do you know—can you imagine what he said after I had twice assured him as to those dividends on common, replying to his repeated questions? Can you?"

"No," admitted Corson, having reason to be considerably uncertain in regard to Stewart Morrison's newly developed notions about affairs in general.

"He told me I ought to be ashamed of myself—then he pulled out his watch and apologized for monopolizing me so long on a gay evening, hoped I was enjoying it, and said he must hurry away and dance with Miss Corson. What did he mean by saying that I ought to be ashamed of myself? What did he mean by that gratuitous insult to a man who had made him a generous proposition in straight business—to a guest under your roof, Senator Corson?"

"By gad! I'll find out what it means!" snapped the Senator, pricked in his pride and in his sense of responsibility as a go-between. He pushed a button in the row on his study table. "This new job as mayor seems to be playing some sort of a devil's trick with Stewart. I'll admit, Daunt, that I didn't relish some of the priggish preachment on politics mouthed by him in his office when we were there. But I didn't pay much attention—any more than I did to his exaggerated flourish in the way he attended to city business. The new brooms! You know!"

"Yes, I know!" The banker was sardonic. "I could overlook his display of importance when he neglected gentlemen in order to parade his tuppenny mayor's business. I paid no attention to his vaporings on the water question. I've heard plenty of franchise-owners talk that way for effect! He's an especially avaricious Scot, isn't he? Confound him! How much more shall I offer him?"

"I'll admit that Stewart seems to be different these days in some respects, but unless he has made a clean change of all his nature in this shift of some of his ideas, you'd better not offer him any more!" warned the Senator. "I never detected any 'For Sale' sign on him!"

The Senator's secretary stepped into the study.

"Find Mayor Morrison in the ballroom and tell him I want to see him here."

"Corson, you're a United States Senator," proceeded the banker when the man had departed, "and your position enables you to take a broad view of business in general. But naturally you're for your own state first of all."

"Certainly! Loyally so!"

"I think you thoroughly understand my play for consolidated development of the water-power here. Every single unit should be put at work for the good of the country. Isn't that so?"

"Yes, decidedly."

"To set up such arbitrary boundaries as state lines in these matters of development is a narrow and selfish policy," insisted Daunt. "It would be like the coal states refusing to sell their surplus to the country at large. If this Morrison proposes to play the bigoted demagogue in the matter, exciting the people to attempt impractical control that will paralyze the whole proposition, he must be stepped on. You can show due regard for the honor and the prosperity of your own state, but as a statesman, working for the general welfare of the country at large, you've got to take a broader view than his."

"I do. I can make Stewart understand."

Daunt paced up and down the room, easing his turgid neck against a damp collar. The Senator pondered.

The secretary, after a time, tapped and entered.

"Mayor Morrison is not in the ballroom, sir. And I could not find him."

"You should have inquired of Miss Corson."

"I could not find Miss Corson."

The Senator started for the door. He turned and went back to Daunt. "It's all right! I gave her a bit of a commission. It's in regard to Morrison. She seems to be attending to it faithfully. Be easy! I'll bring him."

The father went straight to the library. He knew the resources of his own mansion in the matter of nooks for a tete-a-tete interview; now he was particularly assisted by remembrance of Stewart's habits in the old days. He found his daughter and the mayor of Marion cozily ensconced among the cushions of a deep window-seat.

Stewart was listening intently to the girl, his chin on his knuckles, his elbow propped on his knee. His forehead was puckered; he was gazing at her with intent seriousness.

"Senator Corson," warned the girl, "we are in executive session."

"I see! I understand! But I need Stewart urgently for a few moments."

"I surrendered him willingly a little while ago. But this conference must not be interrupted, sir!"

"Certainly not, Senator Corson!" asserted Stewart, with a decisive snap in his tone. "We have a great deal of ground to go over."

"I'll allow you plenty of time—but a little later. There is a small matter to be set straight. 'Twill take but a few moments."

"It's undoubtedly either business or politics, sir," declared Lana, with a fine assumption of parliamentary dignity. "But I have the floor for concerns of my own, and I'll not cede any of my time."

"It is hardly business or politics," returned the Senator, gravely. "It concerns a matter of courtesy between guests in my home, and I'm anxious to have the thing straightened out at once. I beg of you, Stewart!"

The mayor rose promptly.

"I suppose I must consider it a question of privilege and yield," consented Lana, still carrying on her little play of procedure. "But do I have your solemn promise, Senator Corson, that this gentleman will be returned to me by you at the earliest possible moment?"

"I promise."

"And I want your promise that you will hurry back," said the girl, addressing Stewart. "I'll wait right here!"

"But, Lana, remember your duties to our guests," protested her father.

"I have been fulfilling them ever since the reception-line was formed." She waved her hand to draw their attention to the distant music. "The guests are having a gorgeous time all by themselves. I'll be waiting here," she warned. "Remember, please, both of you that I am waiting. That ought to hurry your settlement of that other matter you speak of."

"I'll waste no time!" Morrison assured her. He marched away with the
Senator.

In the study Corson took his stand between his two guests. Daunt was bristling; Morrison displayed no emotion of any sort.

"Mr. Daunt, I think you'd better state your grievance, as you feel it, so that Mr. Morrison can assure both of us that it arises from a misunderstanding."

The banker took advantage of that opportunity with great alacrity. "Now that Senator Corson is present—now that we have a broad-minded referee, Mr. Morrison, I propose to go over that matter of business."

"Exactly on the same lines?" inquired Stewart, mildly.

"Exactly! And for obvious reasons—so that Corson may understand just how much your attitude hurt my feelings."

"Pardon me, Mr. Daunt. I have no time to listen to the repetition. It will gain you nothing from me. My mind remains the same. And Miss Corson is waiting for me. I have promised to return to her as soon as possible."

"But it will take only a little while to go over the matter," pleaded
Corson.

"It will be time wasted on a repetition, sir. I have no right to keep Miss
Corson waiting, on such an excuse."

"You give me an almighty poor excuse for unmannerly treatment of my business, Morrison," Daunt stated, with increasing ire.

"I really must agree in that," chided the Senator.

"Sir, you gave your daughter the same promise for yourself," declared
Stewart.

"Now let's not be silly, Stewart. Lana was playing! You can go right on with her from where you left off."

"Perhaps!" admitted the mayor. "I hope so, at any rate. But I don't propose to break my promise." He added in his own mind that he did not intend to allow a certain topic between him and Lana Corson to get cold while he was being bullyragged by two elderly gentlemen in that study.

"By the gods! you'll have to talk turkey to me on one point!" asserted Daunt, his veneer of dignity cracking wide and showing the coarser grain of his nature. "I made you a square business proposition and you insulted me—under the roof of a gentleman who had vouched for both of us."

"Thank you! Now we are not retracing our steps, as you threatened to do. We go on from where we left off. Therefore, I can give you a few moments, sir. What insult did I offer you?"

"You told me that I ought to be ashamed of myself."

"That was not an insult, Mr. Daunt. I intended it to be merely a frank expression of opinion. Just a moment, please!" he urged, breaking in on violent language. He brought his thumb and forefinger together to make a circle and poised his hand over his head. "I don't wear one of these. I have no right to wear one. Halo, I mean! I'm no prig or preacher—at least, I don't mean to be. But when I talk business I intend to talk it straight and use few words—and those words may sound rather blunt, sometimes. Just a moment, I say!"

He leaned over the table and struck a resounding blow on it with his knuckles. "This is a nutshell proposition and we'll keep it in small compass. You gave me a layout of your proposed stock issue. No matter what has been done by the best of big financiers, no matter what is being done or what is proposed to be done, in this particular case your consolidation means that you've got to mulct the people to pay unreasonably high charges on stock. It isn't a square deal. My property was developed on real money. I know what it pays and ought to pay. I won't put it into a scheme that will oblige every consumer of electricity to help pay dividends on imaginary money. And if you're seriously attempting to put over any consolidation of that sort on our people, Mr. Daunt, I repeat that you ought to be ashamed of yourself."

"And now you have heard him with your own ears," clamored the banker.
"What do you say to that, Mr. Corson?"

"All capitalization entails a fair compromise—values to be considered in the light of new development," said the Senator. "Let's discuss the proposition, Stewart."

"Discussion will only snarl us up. I'm stating the principle. You can't compromise principle! I refuse to discuss."

"Have you gone crazy over this protection-of-the-people idea?" demanded
Corson, with heat.

"Maybe so! I'm not sure. I may be a little muddled. But I see a principle ahead and I'm going straight at it, even though I may tread on some toes. I believe that the opinion doesn't hold good, any longer, as a matter of right, that because a man has secured a franchise, and his charter permits him to build a dam across a river or the mouth of a lake, he is thereby entitled to all the power and control and profit he can get from that river or lake without return in direct payment on that power to the people of the state. We know it's by constitutional law that the people own the river and the lake. I'm putting in a report on this whole matter to the incoming legislature, Senator Corson."

"Good Heavens! Morrison, you're not advocating the soviet doctrine that the state can break existing contracts, are you?" shouted the Senator.

"I take the stand that charters do not grant the right for operators of water-power to charge anything their greed prompts 'em to charge on ballooned stock. I assert that charters are fractured when operators flagrantly abuse the public that way! I'm going to propose a legislative bill that will oblige water-power corporations to submit in public reports our state engineers' figures on actual honest profit-earning valuation; to publish complete lists of all the men who own stock so that we may know the interests and the persons who are secretly behind the corporations."

Corson displayed instant perturbation.

"Such publication can be twisted to injure honest investors. It can be used politically by a man's enemies. Stewart, I am heavily interested financially in Daunt's syndicate, because I believe in developing our grand old state. I bring this personal matter to your attention so that you may see how this general windmill-tilting is going to affect your friends."

"I'm for our state, too, sir! And I'll mention a personal matter that's close to me, seeing that you have broached the subject. St. Ronan's mill is responsible for more than two hundred good homes in the city of Marion, built, owned, and occupied by our workers. And in order to clean up a million profit for myself, I don't propose to go into a syndicate that may decide to ship power out of this state and empty those homes."

"You are leaping at insane conclusions," roared Daunt. He shook his finger under Morrison's nose.

"I'll admit that I have arrived at some rather extreme conclusions, sir," admitted Stewart, putting his threatened nose a little nearer Daunt's finger. "I based the conclusions on your own statement to me that you proposed to make my syndicate holdings more valuable by a legislative measure that would permit the consolidation to take over poles and wires of existing companies or else run wires into communities in case the existing companies would not sell."

"That's only the basic principle of business competition for the good of the consuming public. Competition is the demand, the right of the people," declared Daunt.

"I'm a bit skeptical—still basing my opinion on your own statements as to common-stock dividends—as to the price per kilowatt after competitors shall have been sandbagged according to that legislative measure," drawled the mayor. He turned to the Senator. "You see, sir, your guest and myself are still a good ways apart in our business ideas!"

"We'll drop business—drop it right where it is," said the Senator, curtly. "Mr. Daunt has tried to meet you more than half-way in business, in my house, taking my indorsement of you. When I recommended you I was not aware that you had been making radical speeches to a down-town mob. I am shocked by the change in you, Stewart. Have you any explanation to give me?"

"I'm afraid it would take too long to go over it now in a way to make you understand, sir. I don't want to spoil my case by leaving you half informed. Mr. Daunt and I have reached an understanding. Pardon me, but I insist that I must keep my promise to Miss Corson."

The father did not welcome that announcement. "I trust that the understanding you mention includes the obligation to forget all that Mr. Daunt has said under my roof this evening."

"I have never betrayed confidences in my personal relations with any man,
Senator Corson," returned Morrison.

"Then your honor naturally suggests your course in this peculiar situation."

"Let's not stop to split hairs of honor! What do you expect me to do?" demanded Morrison, bruskly business-like.

"I'll tell you what I expect," volunteered Daunt. "You have possession of facts——"

"I did not solicit them, sir. I was practically forced into an interview with you when I much rather would have been enjoying myself in the ballroom."

"Nevertheless, you have the facts. Under the circumstances you have no right to them. I expect you to show a gentleman's consideration and keep carefully away from my affairs."

"I, also, must ask that much, as your mutual host," put in Corson.

"Gentlemen," declared Stewart, setting back his shoulders, "by allowing myself to stretch what you term 'honor' to that fine point I would be held up in a campaign I have started—prevented from going on with my work, simply because Mr. Silas Daunt is among the men I'm fighting. I'm exactly where I was before Mr. Daunt talked to me. I propose to lick a water-power monopoly in this state if it's in my humble power to do it. If you stay in that crowd, Mr. Daunt, you've got to take your chances along with the rest of 'em."

"Stewart, your position is outrageous," blazed Corson. "You're not only throwing away a wonderful business opportunity on lines wholly approved by general usage—simply to indulge an impractical whim for which you'll get no thanks—taking a nonsensical stand for a mere dream in the way of public ownership—but you're insulting me, myself, by the inference that may be drawn."

"I don't understand, sir."

"Well, then, understand!" said the Senator, carried far by his indignation. "You know how I made my fortune!"

"I do!"

"Was I not justified in buying in all the public timber-lands at the going price?"

"Yes, seeing that the people of the state were fools enough to stay asleep and let lands go for a dollar or so an acre—lands to-day worth thousands of dollars an acre for the timber on 'em!"

"I paid the price that was asked. That's as far as a business man is expected to go."

"Certainly, Senator. I'm glad for you. But, I repeat, the people were asleep! Now I'm going to wake 'em up to guard their last great heritage—the water-power that they still own! I'll keep 'em awake, if I've got strength enough in this arm to keep on drumming and breath enough to keep the old trumpet sounding!"

"The corporations in this state are organized, they will protect their charters, they will make you let go of your wild scheme," bellowed the banker. "By the jumped-up Jehoshaphat, they will make you let go, Morrison! By the great—"

"Hush!" pleaded their host. "They can hear outside. No profanity!"

Stewart had started toward the door; he paused for a moment when he had his hand on the knob. "We will not let go!" he said, calmly. "We won't let go—and this is not profanity, Senator Corson—we won't let go of as much as one dam-site!"