bout all over the place, giving it an air of
feminine occupation that was extremely exciting to a student on his
travels. The truth was that none of those hats would go into the
cupboards. Fashion had worsted the organization completely. Departmental
chiefs had nothing to do but acquiesce in this startling untidiness.
Either they must wait till the circumference of hats lessened again, or
they must tear down the whole structure and rebuild it with due regard
to hats.

Finally, we approached the sacred lair and fastness of the president,
whose massive portrait I had already seen on several walls. Spaciousness
and magnificence increased. Ceilings rose in height, marble was softened
by the thick pile of carpets. Mahogany and gold shone more luxuriously.
I was introduced into the vast antechamber of the presidential
secretaries, and by the chief of them inducted through polished and
gleaming barriers into the presence-chamber itself: a noble apartment,
an apartment surpassing dreams and expectations, conceived and executed
in a spirit of majestic prodigality. The president had not been afraid.
And his costly audacity was splendidly justified of itself. This man had
a sense of the romantic, of the dramatic, of the fit. And the qualities
in him and his _etat major_ which had commanded the success of the
entire enterprise were well shown in the brilliant symbolism of that
room's grandiosity.... And there was the president's portrait again,
gorgeously framed.

He came in through another door, an old man of superb physique, and
after a little while he was relating to me the early struggles of his
company. "My wife used to say that for ten years she never saw me," he
remarked.

I asked him what his distractions were, now that the strain was over and
his ambitions so gloriously achieved. He replied that occasionally he
went for a drive in his automobile.

"And what do you do with yourself in the evenings?" I inquired.

He seemed a little disconcerted by this perhaps unaccustomed bluntness.

"Oh," he said, casually, "I read insurance literature."

He had the conscious mien and manners of a reigning prince. His courtesy
and affability were impeccable and charming. In the most profound sense
this human being had succeeded, for it was impossible to believe that,
had he to live his life again, he would live it very differently.

Such a type of man is, of course, to be found in nearly every country;
but the type flourishes with