lowly
lighted it. As the smoke curled up, it circled in gray rings upon the
air, filling the room with the aroma of the Virginia leaf. He watched it
idly, his mind upon the pile of unopened letters awaiting his attention.
Above the mantel hung a small oil painting of a Confederate soldier
after Appomattox, and it reminded him vaguely of some one whom he had
half forgotten. He followed the trail for a moment and gave it up.
Higher still was an engraving of Mr. Jefferson Davis, with the
well-remembered Puritan cast of feature and the severe chin beard.
Beneath the pictures a trivial ornament stood on the mantel and beside
it a white rose in water breathed a fading fragrance. A child who had
come to feed the squirrels in the square had put the rose in his coat,
and he had transferred it to the glass of water.

He turned towards his desk and took up several cards that he had not
seen. So Rann had called in his absence--and Vaden and Diggs. As he
pushed the cards aside, he summoned mentally the men before him and
weighed the possible values of each. Why had Rann called, he
wondered--he had an object, of course, for he did not pay so much as a
call without a purpose. The name evoked the man--he saw him plainly in
the circles of gray smoke--a stout, square figure, with short legs, his
plaid socks showing beneath light trousers; a red, hairy face, with a
wart in his left eyebrow, which was heavier than his right one; a large
head, prematurely bald, and beneath an almost intellectual forehead, a
pair of shrewd, intelligent eyes. Rann was a match for any man in
politics, he knew--the great, silent voice, some one had said--the man
who was clever enough to let others do his talking for him. Yes, he was
glad that Rann would back him up.

The remaining callers appeared together in his reverie--Vaden and Diggs.
They were never mentioned apart, and they never worked singly. They
were honest men, whose honesty was dangerous because it went with dull
credulity. In appearance they were so unlike as to make the connection
ludicrous. Vaden was long, emaciated, with a shrunken chest in which a
consumptive cough rattled. His face was scholarly, pallid, pleasant to
look at, and there was a sympathetic quality in his voice which carried
with it a reminder of past bereavements. Beside the sentimental languor
which enveloped him, Diggs loomed grotesquely fair and florid, with eyes
bulging with joviality, and red, repellent, almost gluttonous li