It is tiresome, I know, to read about municipal reform; most of us want the results and not the process—and some of us not even the results. And it is no less tiresome to read about investments, unless we are dealing with some young knight of finance who strives successfully for his lady's favor and who, successful, lives with her ever after in the style to which her father has accustomed her. But in the case of a maladroit man of fifty....

I had asked Raymond to call on me with any new scheme that was taking his attention, and one forenoon he walked in.

He had an envelope of loose papers. He laid some of them on my desk and thumbed a few others with an undecided expression.

"What do you think of this?" he asked. "I've got to have more money, and here's something that may bring it in."

It was a speculative industrial affair in Upper Michigan. I saw some familiar names attached—among them that of John W. McComas, though not prominently.

"I'll find out for you," I said.

"I don't want you to find out from him."

"I'll find out."

Raymond fingered his envelope fussily: there was nothing left in it.

"It's all costing me too much. Extras at that school. That big house—too big, too expensive. I can't lug it along any farther. Find me some one to buy it."

"I'll see," I said.

I told him about our visit to the club, two or three months before. I implied, in as delicate and circumambulatory a way as possible, that his one-time wife, according to my own observations, taken under peculiarly favorable, because exacting, conditions, was completely accepted.

"Oh yes," he replied, as if the matter had been settled years ago, and as if he had long had that sense of it. Yes, he seemed to be saying, the marriage had made it all right for her, and had soon begun to make it better for him. Possibly not a "deceived" husband; and no longer so rawly flagrant a failure as a human companion.

"Their house is good, I gather," he went on. "There were some plates of it in the architectural journals. Just how good he doesn't know, I suppose—and never will."

"I found him fairly appreciative of it."

"Possibly—as a financial achievement brought about by his own money."

"He's learning some of its good points," I declared.

"There was some talk of having Albert there, just before they went off to the Yellowstone." He frowned. "Well, this can't go on so many more years, now."

I did not quite get Raymond's attitude. He did not want the boy with him at home. He did not want to meet any extra expenses—and Mrs. McComas was assuredly paying Albert's way through mid-summer, as well as eternally buying him clothes. I think that what Raymond wanted—and wanted but rather weakly—was his own will, whether there was any advantage in it or not, and wanted that will without payments, charges, costs.

I disliked his grudging way, or rather, his balking way, as regarded a recognition of the liberality of his former wife's husband—for that was what it came to.

I returned his prospectus. "I'll look this up. How about that company in Montana?" I continued.

"They've passed a dividend. I was counting on something from that quarter."

"And how about the factory in Iowa?"

"That will bring me something next year."

"Well," I said, doubling back to the matter that had brought him in, "I'll inquire about this and let you know."

In the course of a few days I called on McComas. Others were calling. Others were always calling. If I wanted to see him I should have to wait. I had expected to wait. I waited.

When I was finally admitted, he rose and came halfway through his splendors of upholstery to give me an Olympian greeting.

"It's brass tacks," I said. "Three minutes will do."

"Four, if you like."

"Three. Frankly, very frankly, is this a thing"—here I used the large page of ornamental letter-press as word-saver—"is this a thing for an ordinary investor?"

"Ordinary investor"—that is what I called Raymond. Perhaps I flattered him unduly.

"Why," responded McComas, with a grimace, "it's a right enough thing for the right man—or men. Several of us expect to do pretty well out of it."

"'Several'? How about the rank outsider?"

"Anybody that you know sniffing?"

"Yes."

"Who?"

"Well—Prince."

"H'm." Johnny pondered; became magnanimous. "Well, it ain't for him. Pull his nose away. I don't want his money."

He knew what he had taken. He may have had a prescience of what he was yet to take. He could afford an interim of generosity.