practically made.

A year or so after the Boyne Company, Ltd., came into existence I
chanced one morning to go down to the new Ashuela Hotel to meet a New
Yorker of some prominence, and was awaiting him in the lobby, when I
overheard a conversation between two commercial travellers who were
sitting with their backs to me.

"Did you notice that fellow who went up to the desk a moment ago?" asked
one.

"The young fellow in the grey suit? Sure. Who is he? He looks as if he
was pretty well fixed."

"I guess he is," replied the first. "That's Paret. He's Scherer's
confidential counsel. He used to be Senator Watling's partner, but they
say he's even got something on the old man."

In spite of the feverish life I led, I was still undoubtedly
young-looking, and in this I was true to the incoming type of successful
man. Our fathers appeared staid at six and thirty. Clothes, of course,
made some difference, and my class and generation did not wear the
sombre and cumbersome kind, with skirts and tails; I patronized a tailor
in New York. My chestnut hair, a little darker than my father's had
been, showed no signs of turning grey, although it was thinning a little
at the crown of the forehead, and I wore a small moustache, clipped in
a straight line above the mouth. This made me look less like a college
youth. Thanks to a strong pigment in my skin, derived probably from
Scotch-Irish ancestors, my colour was fresh. I have spoken of my life as
feverish, and yet I am not so sure that this word completely describes
it. It was full to overflowing--one side of it; and I did not miss (save
vaguely, in rare moments of weariness) any other side that might have
been developed. I was busy all day long, engaged in affairs I deemed to
be alone of vital importance in the universe. I was convinced that the
welfare of the city demanded that supreme financial power should remain
in the hands of the group of men with whom I was associated, and whose
battles I fought in the courts, in the legislature, in the city council,
and sometimes in Washington,--although they were well cared for there.
By every means ingenuity could devise, their enemies were to be driven
from the field, and they were to be protected from blackmail.

A sense of importance sustained me; and I remember in that first
flush of a success for which I had not waited too long--what a secret
satisfaction it was to pick up the Era and see my name embedded in
certain dignified notic