Did you ever go among strangers and pretend to be a more important personage than you really are? Yes? So have I. There are many of us who habitually take a taxicab when we go into a strange city on a modest piece of business. Yet at home we would walk six blocks to save a nickel in car fare. I would not acknowledge to the hotel clerk, nor would you, that an inside room, price one dollar, is what, in my heart, I would like to ask for when I say that three-fifty will be about right. And we tip the waiter, you and I, although we know that he makes twice the money we do, and we let the haberdasher's clerk sell us a shirt for three dollars when we should pay one, and the barber bulldozes us into taking a shampoo when there is a perfectly good bar of soap at home and not working.

For, to ourselves, upon occasion, we like to be the dream people, to see ourselves as the great and dominant of the land, to step out of the everyday commonplace of our existence. We pay the price of our temporary emancipation. We may feel a bit foolish when the bellboy is gone and we are alone with the pitcher of ice water, but in our hearts it is worth the money.

Admitting this tendency to dissemble, how large a front of false pretense could you put up, how important a personage do you think you could make of yourself, if you should find all the gates open and were invited to do your durndest? And if you should, in a moment of abandon, summon courage to introduce yourself as the King of Spain or Anthony Comstock or Lillian Russell, and if you did this in a gathering that you knew to be made up of selected master minds, how well do you think you would be able to sustain the part?

This is the story of a modest employee of the Government, drawing $2,500 a year, who walked into a convention of millionaire manufacturers and with no basis in fact for his claim, virtually spoke to these dominant and successful princes of industry as follows:

"Gentlemen, you are mere children playing at the factory business. I am the master here. Please be nice to me and tell me all your secrets or I will cut off your supply of raw material."

It was such an assignment as this that one morning came over to New York in the mail from Washington and fell to the lot of Special Agent Billy Gard. The instructions said:

"The Northern Pulp and Paper Manufacturers' Association will hold its convention at the Waldorf on the 19th, 20th, 21st and 22nd. It is suspected of being a conspiracy in restraint of trade. Its deliberations are in secret and the membership is unknown. Ascertain all action of the convention and procure a list of the members of the association."

This action on the part of the Government was occasioned by complaints from publishers of newspapers throughout the country which seemed to indicate that there was an understanding among manufacturers as to prices that should be charged for white paper. If there was such an agreement that prevented competition, it was probably reached through some association of which all were members. There was the Northern Pulp and Paper Manufacturers' Association. Its deliberations and its membership were secret. This fact put it under suspicion. Was it fixing prices?

To answer this question, Special Agent Billy Gard went on his vain-glorious debauch of assuming an importance that was not his due. He unleashed that tendency that is within us all and let it run riot to the limit. But back of the dissembling there was an object to be accomplished.

"You are President Van Dorn of the association, I believe?" said Gard as he presented himself to that individual on the morning the convention was to be opened. "My name is William H. Gard. I am most anxious to attend your meetings."

"Are you a member?" asked the president, an incisive and businesslike man of affairs whose factories produced 40 per cent. of the white paper used by the daily press of the nation.

"No," acknowledged Gard, "I do not belong to the association, but I nevertheless believe that the membership would be glad to have me present."

"If you are a manufacturer you may become a member and attend," said President Van Dorn.

"I am not a manufacturer," smiled the special agent. "I am the man back of the manufacturer. I come to you to-day, but in the near future you will all come to me. It is in the interest of the manufacturers that I want to attend."

"I do not understand," said the president.

"You of course know of the Canadian Northwest Timber Company," said the special agent. (As a matter of fact there was no company of exactly that name.) "I am the representative of that company. You may also know that we have been accumulating lands covered with spruce timber for twenty years. Our holdings now amount to areas equal to the whole of the States of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. It is not necessary that I should call your attention to the exhaustion of the spruce of New England, nor of other areas in the United States that have, in the past, been your source of supply for pulp from which to make your paper. The timber supply heretofore available for this purpose is approaching exhaustion. When it is gone you will all turn to the forests that are next most accessible. We have those forests. I therefore say to you that all of you will come to me within the next decade. I am coming to you in advance."

As the young man who claimed to be from the Canadian Northwest talked, the brusk manner of the president of the paper manufacturers gradually relaxed. He stroked his luxuriant, close-cropped whiskers in each direction from the distinct part down his chin and listened with undivided attention. The Canadian timber lands were at that time the matter of greatest interest in the pulp and paper world. These lands had been something of a mystery, for their owners were evidently sitting tight and biding their time.

"I had depended on my subject to interest you," said Gard. "I came all the way from Canada to get acquainted with the men who are going to consume my product. I would like to attend your convention and address it."

Gard's preparation for this approach and bid for a seat on the floor of the convention, had been most thorough. Upon receipt of his orders he had found himself with a week in which to make ready. His first step had been to get in touch with the publisher of a great New York daily who had reported to the Department his belief that there was a white paper trust. That publisher spent hundreds of thousands of dollars every year for paper. He had therefore carefully studied the paper situation. He had all the facts as to the supply of pulp timber. He knew just the crisis that the paper manufacturers faced. These facts he imparted to Gard and the special agent saw, through them, his opportunity to reach the confidence of the manufacturers and get all the facts with relation to their organization.

The convention was yet a week off. Gard had time to accumulate a sunburn and he went fishing down the bay three afternoons in succession, wore no hat and rolled up his sleeves. He was a young man of a lobster red for a day or two but of a deep bronze at the end of the week. With a touch or two of the woods such as a stout pair of shoes and a hunting knife which he found occasion to produce, just the right impression was created.

"There is nobody that the convention would rather hear talk," President Van Dorn was saying. "There is nobody who has a subject of more interest. But admission to the convention is provided for in the constitution and by-laws. Only members may be admitted. Our work is strictly confidential."

"However, nothing is impossible," insisted Gard. "A constitution can be amended."

"The manner in which it can be amended is also provided for in the by-laws. It cannot be done in four days."

The special agent saw himself bound to fail to get himself admitted to the convention. There was the advantage, however, of having been denied a courtesy to which he had a strong claim and this left the way open to the asking of other important favors.

"Even though you cannot attend the meetings," Van Dorn suggested, "I want to see that you meet all our leading people and in this way you may accomplish practically as much. I would be glad if you would dine with me to-night."

"I shall be very glad to do so," said the special agent. "In the meantime you can probably provide me with a list of your members. In that way I can at least communicate with them all."

"That list is quite confidential," said the president. "I have no copy of it myself."

"But your permanent headquarters in Fourth Avenue will have it," suggested Gard. "Can you give me a note to the secretary?"

To this the president assented somewhat hesitatingly. The note he wrote was also a bit indefinite. It was not instructions to give a copy of the list. It might be so interpreted if the secretary were inclined to be friendly.

So Gard went for his list with some inward trepidation, although the man who pretended to hold the fate of the paper manufacturers of a nation in his hand could afford to show no outward manifestation of it.

The secretary of the Northern Pulp and Paper Manufacturers' Association was a most courteous young Virginian bearing the name of Randolph. The special agent knew the secretary was a Southerner as soon as he met him. The former had originated in Baltimore. After the manner of Southerners the two discussed names and families. The special agent knew a great deal about the Randolph family. In fact, he said, his family had married into the Randolphs in one of its branches. The lines were followed until it seemed that the men might well believe that they were cousins several times removed. Incidentally they had started to be friends in the way most accredited among Southerners.

Gard delivered his note from President Van Dorn and took great pains to explain the position of the Canadian Northwest Timber Company. He made it clear that his people were on the eve of playing a large part in the paper pulp world. He wanted to ask Randolph's advice about certain matters and he wanted to get in touch with some enterprising young man who knew the manufacturers. To such a young man he might offer an enviable business opportunity. In the meantime he would like a copy of the membership list of the association.

It developed that there was but one such list in existence. It had to be dug up from the association's safe and copied. But the secretary was friendly to this one-time Southerner, now of the north woods; he was a young man who knew the manufacturers, and who would take a look at a business opportunity; he had the note of instruction, somewhat indefinite to be sure, from the president of the association.

Gard secured his list of members. As fast as a taxicab could carry him, he was away to his office, from which requests for prices of paper were dispatched to every firm on the list, in the name of the New York publisher who was helping the Government.

That night the special agent dined with President Van Dorn and other men high in the counsels of the Pulp and Paper Manufacturers' Association. His position was explained and regrets were generally expressed that he might not be present at the meeting. Only the constitution stood in the way. There was no other reason why one so vitally interested in the welfare of the manufacturers should not be a member. Information of a most exhaustive nature should be given him. Even the minutes of the meeting and copies of addresses should be put at his disposal. He should meet all present.

So Agent Gard loafed about the Waldorf for four days. He was regarded, not merely as a master of finance who was the equal of any of the manufacturers attending the convention, but as the man of them all who held the whip hand. Morning and night he cultivated these men, talked business with them, asked them questions. They told him all that went on in the convention, allowed him to read its minutes. He was the most courted man at the hotel when the word got well circulated that he was the pulp king of the Canadian Northwest.

Gard, of course, had an average number of acquaintances scattered about the country and many of these knew of his association with the Department of Justice. In a New York hotel there is always a chance of meeting friends from any place in the world. Gard was therefore not surprised, on the evening of the manufacturers' banquet which brought the convention to a close, to pass in a corridor two old-time friends, men whom he had known in college. They hailed him vociferously as "Gard, old man." It was against just such an emergency that he had used his own name.

The special agent was at the time going in to dinner with Randolph, the secretary, and a member from Buffalo. Nothing would have come of this chance greeting had it not been that a paper manufacturer was standing beside the two friends of Gard when the latter passed. One of these young men turned to the other and asked:

"What is Gard doing now? I haven't seen him since I left college."

"He is with the Department of Justice," said the second friend. "He is a special agent, a detective working on big trust investigations."

And the manufacturer heard it all. He immediately communicated his information to President Van Dorn. That official lost his urbane equanimity and fluttered about in much confusion, consulting with others in authority. He did not approach Gard, and that young man was all unsuspicious that anything had gone wrong until the time came for after-dinner speeches.

"Before we proceed with the toasts on the program," said President Van Dorn, who was master of ceremonies, "I should like to call the attention of the members present to one matter not regularly scheduled. We have all met, during the week, Mr. Gard, of the Canadian Northwest. Mr. Gard has furnished many of us with facts that seemed to be vital to the interests of wood pulp business. We, in exchange, have given to Mr. Gard much information with relation to the pulp and paper business. I should like to present Mr. Gard to this gathering, if I may."

President Van Dorn paused and looked expectantly in the direction of the young man in question. The situation was such that Gard was required to arise and receive the introduction and, as he expected, make a bit of a speech. He rose to his feet.

"This, gentlemen," continued Van Dorn, "is Mr. Gard. As the representative of the Canadian Northwest Timber company you have unbosomed yourselves to him. He is, in reality, a detective of the Department of Justice. You, gentlemen, are under investigation. Will Mr. Gard be so good as to tell us whether or not we are a trust in restraint of trade?"

The young representative of Uncle Sam was taken completely by surprise. He had gone so far with his work without being suspected that he had thought he would get all the way through. But he had all the time discounted the possibility of being found out and was therefore entirely prepared.

"I plead guilty as charged," he said, bowing profoundly and grinning somewhat sheepishly and boyishly. "You, gentlemen, have been, as we say in sleuth circles, 'roped.' You have told your secrets to the investigator unknowingly.

"I most humbly apologize for the imposition. I was working under instructions. Unless it can be shown that your association is in restraint of trade nothing will come of the investigation. If you are a conspiracy you will deserve what you get.

"If I may be pardoned for talking shop I will tell you just your position with relation to the Government. What the Department of Justice wants to do with such people as you is to go to you frankly and ask you to lay your cards on the table—to open your books to the examination of our experts. Before this is done it is sometimes wise to get a look behind the screens before the stage is set for the play. I have been taking that peep.

"Four days ago, for instance, I secured a list of the membership of this association. That night, in the name of a certain newspaper publisher, letters were written to every member asking for quotations of prices. The price lists are in the mail by this time and coming back to us. Now, if there is a great similarity in those prices, suspicion will be aroused. It is better that this and other tests be put upon manufacturers before they are aware that an investigation is on.

"But now we are in the open. To-morrow I will call upon the association to produce its books. It need not respond to that call, but if it is honest there is no reason why it should not. It may be that I will ask individual members to show their accounts and correspondence. In the end we will be very well acquainted. I trust that we may then be as friendly as we have been during your convention and my deception. I will now bid you good-night."

Gard's work "under cover" was completed. It was but an incident in the relations between a great industry and the Government. The next week the books of the association were thrown open to the Government. President Van Dorn, whose factory was the largest of them all, volunteered access to his records and others followed suit. So was an era of fair dealing inaugurated.

This all happened years ago. The fidelity with which the special agent laid the basis of his deception is proved by the fact that many of these manufacturers are now getting their pulp from the Canadian Northwest. The name of Gard does not, however, appear among the list of officers of any of the companies supplying pulp. The young man is probably now off on the trail of some other real or suspected violator of the Federal statutes, meeting new emergencies, gaining new experiences, playing a modest but not unimportant part in the big and vital affairs of the nation.

THE END