en mere "day's jobs" were not
beneath his notice. Yet his triumphs cost him dear. Merry groups had a
way of dissolving at his coming. He read dislike in many a hostess's
eye, and, save for the small coterie of inferior satellites, Sprudell in
his own club was as lonely as a leper. But so strong was this dominating
trait that he preferred the sweetness of revenge to any tie of
fellowship or hope of popularity. The ivy of friendship did not grow for
him.

By a secret ballot, Sprudell in his own town could not have been elected
dog-catcher, yet his money and his newspaper made him dangerous and a
power.

When he regaled his fellow members with the dramatic story of his
sufferings, he said nothing of Bruce Burt. Bruce Burt was dead, of that
he had not the faintest doubt. He intended to keep the promise he had
made to hunt the Naudain fellow's relatives, but for the present he felt
that his frosted feet were paramount.

VII

SPRUDELL GOES EAST

With an air of being late for many important engagements, T. Victor
Sprudell bustled into the Hotel Strathmore in the Eastern city that had
been Slim's home and inscribed his artistic signature upon the register;
and as a consequence Peters, city editor of the _Evening Dispatch_,
while glancing casually over the proofs that had just come from the
composing room, some hours later, paused at the name of T. Victor
Sprudell, Bartlesville, Indiana, among the list of hotel arrivals.

Mr. Peters shoved back his green shade, closed one eye, and with the
other stared fixedly at the ceiling. One of the chief reasons why he
occupied the particular chair in which he sat was because he had a
memory like an Edison record, and now he asked himself where and in what
connection he had seen this name in print before.

Who was this Sprudell? What had he done? Had he run away with somebody,
embezzled, explored--explored, that was more like it! Ah, now he
remembered--Sprudell was a hero. Two "sticks" in the Associated Press
had informed the world how nobly he had saved somebody from something.

Peters scanned the city room. The bright young cub who leaps to fame in
a single story was not present. The city editor had no hallucinations
regarding such members of his staff as he saw at leisure, but thought
again, as he had often thought before, that the world had lost some good
plumbers and gasfitters when they turned to newspaper work. He said
abruptly to the office boy:

"Tell Miss Dunba