Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 85, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 April 1915 — CHAPTER III. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

CHAPTER III.

The Masters. He found himself, a lonely foreign figure knowing not whither he would go, somehow in the city’s heart Chance led him to the principal thoroughfare. The city had begun to quit Its toil, and the released toilers were pouring into the street, an endless unordered horde, heedless of him as they were of one another. Never before had he seen so many people. He had a confused sense of being , sucked into a narrow, gloomy canyon through which poured a flood of humanity, a treacherous, dangerous torrent, with many cross-currents. Countless faces, wan in the unnatural twilight, streamed by him; a stranger type to him, fox-featured, restless of •ya. Full darkness fell. He paused under • fiery sign. The Seneca. Through a great plate-glass window he saw a gaudy red-and-goid interior broken by many columns that to the Inexpert *P* somewhat resembled marble Uniformed pages scurried to and fro. Well dreaaed men lounged in easy chairs or sauntered leisurely about Many lights kernel* brilliantly. He looked within longingly. While he debated whether or not to enter thia expensive-looking hostelry, a porter swooped upon him and ■natehed from his hands the ancient carpetbag that held his slender wardrobe. “This way, sub!" He followed the porter to the desk, painfully conscious of the figure he cut, uncouth, out of place. A clerk of lofty mien placed an open register before him. “Write your name here.” Mark wrote it "And your town.” Mark hesitated—and then, with a dogged lowering of hl* head, firmly wrote the name of that city. In the dining room that night many smiles were cast at the raw country youth. He did not regard himself as a subject for mirth. A* he attacked the strange viands the waiter set before him. a little of his self-confidence returned. The vivid sense of a cruel, overpowering entity faded. HomeatoknsM for Bethel, the refuge, subHa began to take in details of the novel acene around him. His ears strained to catch the remarks that floated to him from the neighboring tables. It was a strange tongue he heard, lightly dismissing terror that would have busied the go* alps of Bethel for a moon. There was a young man who wore diamonds and talked In a loud and impressive . MHsabeth, I see, broke the tooaard again." (Elisabeth, it devei-

oped, was not a race horse, but one of the Quinby Steel company's blast furnaces.) "Yes, sir! More’n forty thousand tons. Henley says—4 think so myself—we’re going to have the biggest steel year yet —No-o, I don’t just exactly know him, but I know people that do.—And Tom Henley's going to be the biggest steel man in the business —gets hie fifty thousand a year already. . . . MacGregor and Quinby? Oh, they’re the richest They let the others make the steel while they make the money. See? Ha! ha! . . , Tom Henley’s the brains of the Quinby crowd. And he’s the d dest speculator. . . . Worth his halfmillion, they say, and ain’t over thirtyfive. . . .’’ And this was the city from another angle. Tom Henley, evidently, had the monster well in hand. The name had a familiar ring. Mark drew from his pocket a letter Richard Courtney had given him that morning. Upon it was inscribed, "To Thomas Henley, Esquire." "He may be willing to help you find work,” Courtney had said, “if he remembers me.” Mark regarded the letter thoughtfully. He wondered what was in it After a moment’s hesitation he opened —it was unsealed —and read it "My Dear Henley,” the letter ran, “I am sending you one who is the work of my hands. He is a young man of parte, ‘good friends,’ as we say up here in Bethel, ‘with work.’ Also he ’has a nose for money.*' They are qualities for which you, perhaps, can help him find a market ... I say he is my handiwork; but he is an unfinished product What I wonder, will the new life that succeeds me as his mentor make of him? Perhaps I should let him strike out for himself and learn at once the ugly cruelty of the struggle that now seems to him so glorious. But we oldsters have tiie habit of helping youth to the sugar-plums of which we have learned the after-taste. ... And this introduction is the last thing I can do fqr a young man who means much to me.”

After many minutes’ study Mark came to his decision. He would present himself and the letter to Thomas Henley. He would do it that very night. He rose from his dinner. “Where,” he inquired of the supercilious clerk, "does Thomas Henley live? I must see him tonight” The directions brought Mark at length into the heart of a small community from which the city still kept at a humble distance. Not so the fog, which was no respecter even of gilded colonies. From a tall iron fence sloped a wide sweeping lawn dotted at exact intervals with trees and shrubbery. And in its center loomed a great shadowy mass, punctured by many windows shooting broad luminous bars into the fog. It was the castle of the tamer. He proceeded with a boldness proper to adventurers in Eldorado, past the waiting carriages that lined the graveled driveway, to the wide veranda. There he halted. From within came the strains of music and a gay clamor of voices. He could not know that on this night the tamer gave a feast, a formal dedication of the new castle to the entertainment of his kind. But he felt the hour to be ill-suited to his purpose. Yet it was effected. Curiosity to look within carried him to a window. To his wondering gaxe unfolded a vista of Irish point and damask satin, carved mahogany and marble figures, gilt-framed pictures and silken rugs. And amid this lavish display of beauties paraded a bevy of creatures seeming to his excited fancy to have stepped out of "Arabian Nights." "Unity,” he said, “will like that” While he stood there a troop of meh, garbed in a monotony of black and white, marched into the room. At the same time voices came from another wing of the wxranda. And then he, son of the blacksmith of Bethel, became a spectator at the birth pt a project that for. a brief but brilliant period was to move the world to hosannas! “Henley,” said the first voice, deep, yet softly flowing as honey, "I have come to the time of life when a man of sense puts away the lusts of the flesh —” “Is your digestion out of order?” interrupted the second, sharper, less musical and with a sardonic quality that delighted the listener. "I noticed you didn’t eat much tonight" "Ah! It is more than stomach. It is soul!” the' mellow voice flowed on. “My labors and investments have been blessed with good fortune. So I am now able to turn my energies to the higher duties, to doing large things for humanity. And lately my thoughts have dwelt much on —philanthropy and paleontology.” The speaker, like Brutus, paused for a reply. "Mmm! Two *p’*»" it earns. "Quite alliterative. Go cm.” "Henley, you are the first to-whom I have spoken of my purpose. It is Used. In what nobler work, what more fertile philanthropy, can a man at wealth engage than in ths develop-

merit of the science of paleontology? Think, Henley—to add to humanity's knowledge of the extinct life that camo before our own! It is a labor to Are the imagination. And that 1s my purpose. I shall build and endow in this city the most complete paleontological institute in the world, and before I lay aside the project, a branch Institution tn each of the largest cities of the nation.” The voice trembled with emotion. j '' There was a sound as of two hands sharply meeting. “Good! I see! Let the Scotchman look to his laurels! MacGregor may build his libraries, but Quinby shall have his paleontological institutes!" Mark wondered at the patience of the answer. “Ah! You are pleased to jest. But the project is new to you. And,” sighingly, “the young think only of wealth and power.” "My dear Mr. Quinby,” the other purred, “no man in his senses could jest at paleontology. What the devil! ” The speakers had turned the corner of the veranda and come upon the eavesdropper. Thus for the first time Mark Truitt looked upon the two men in whose legions be was to conquer. Who has not in fancy’s gallery a portrait of Jeremiah Quinby, taken from the prints of the day when his star swept so brilliant through the sky? The lofty brow seems to shelter a very ferment of noble projects. The grave eyes and mouth speak to us of a great soul anguished by the sight of suffering humanity's needs, which he Is bravely, self-effacingly seeking to relieve. Photography has been less kind to Thomas Henley. No philanthropy has claimed him as its apostle. And then he was a less promising subject for the art. His body was squat and heavy; his face .was bony and ugly and arrogant, often still further marred by a cold, cynical sneer. A lesser man, thus presented, would have been repulsive. Yet from Henley radiated a tremendous vitality that made him magnetic or compelling as lye chose —the dynamic quality that could galvanize a man or a regiment to the mad effort he demanded. After the first glance Mark looked no more upon Quinby; he understood why the philanthropist had so meekly swallowed the insolence. "This," he thought, “is a man." Henley charged upon him, gripping his arm. “What the devil,” he repeated, "are you*doing here?” "Looking into the window." "What are you doing that for?" “Because,” Mark answered simply, "I never saw anything like it before.” "Probably,” the philanthropist-to-be suggested nervously, backing away, “he is some sneak thief. Perhaps you’d better bold him while I get help.” “Oh, don’t be frightened,” Henley replied protectively. "I won’t let him bite you." The sardonic note was again uppermost Mark, looking down at Henley —he had the advantage of his captor by half a head —grinned involuntarily, and was himself led into impudence. "No, I won’t bite you, Mr. Quinby.” Quinby, took another step backward, his nervousness becoming more manifest. “He knows my name! He may be some crank who—” "My dear sir!” This time there was a touch of impatience in the words. “Gentlemen of your importance must

expect their names to become household words. If you’ll feel easier, step inside while I attend to this Peeping Tom." The philanthropist, still insensible—it seemed —to the thinly veiled insolence, accepted the suggestion. "Now then," Henley demanded sharply, “what do you want here? You don’t look like a sneak thief." "I brought a letter to you." “Who from?” “Dr. Richard Courtney.” ' “Who’s her* “He’s our preacher in Bethel.” "Bethel? Elucidate Bethel." Mark defined the village geographically.. “Humph! Let me see the letter.” Mark gave the missive to him, and Henley, opening it, began the perusal. “How many letters like this do you suppose I get every day?” . “A good many, I expect.” “Dozens!” Henley snapped. “Dozens! Enough, if I gave ’em an job*, to cover the Quinby mills three deep with incompetents in a year.” He completed the perusal of til* lettor. "Wall" he sa**r*d, “you who peep

through window*, I suppose you want a nice, tat job you’re not fit to fill? They all want that." Suddenly Mark felt anger, hot anger, at thia arrogant young man. not so many years his senior, who baited philanthropists with as faint scrupling as he rough-handled the seeker of work. Henley saw him stiffen. “No. I don’t,” Mark cried hotly. "I only want a chance to work. A chance to show what I’m good for.** “If that’s all you want—what are you good for?** “I’m a blacksmith, but I can do any* thing." “Humph! We can use fellow* who can do anything—to swing pick and shovel Do you know where we're building our new plant?** “I can find out" “Go to the labor boss and tell him to give you a job with the construction .gang. If you’re good for anything, you can work up the way I—no, not the way I did, but the way you’ll have to if you want to get along where I’m running things.** “All right” Mark said shortly and turned on his heeL

“If That's All You Want, What Are You Good For!"