o work again to consider the whole
situation. He must win and win "big," that was clear; win too, if
possible, in a way that would show his "smartness" and demonstrate
his adversary's ignorance of the world. His anger had at length been
aroused; personal rivalry was a thing he could not tolerate at any time,
and Roberts had injured his position in the town. He was resolved to
give the young man such a lesson that others would be slow to follow his
example. The difficulty of the problem was one of its attractions. Again
and again he turned the question over in his mind--How was he to make
his triumph and the Professor's defeat sensational? All the factors were
present to him and he dwelt upon them with intentness. He was a man of
strong intellect; his mind was both large and quick, but its activity,
owing to want of education and to greedy physical desires, had been
limited to the ordinary facts and forces of life. What books are to most
persons gifted with an extraordinary intelligence, his fellow-men
were to Mr. Gulmore--a study at once stimulating and difficult, of
an incomparable variety and complexity. His lack of learning was of
advantage to him in judging most men. Their stock of ideas, sentiments
and desires had been his for years, and if he now viewed the patchwork
quilt of their morality with indulgent contempt, at least he was
familiar with all the constituent shades of it. But he could not make
the Professor out--and this added to his dislike of him; he recognized
that Roberts was not, as he had at first believed, a mere mouthpiece of
Hutchings, but he could not fathom his motives; besides, as he said to
himself, he had no need to; Roberts was plainly a "crank," book-mad, and
the species did not interest him. But Hutchings he knew well; knew that
like himself Hutchings, while despising ordinary prejudices, was ruled
by ordinary greeds and ambitions. In intellect they were both above
the average, but not in morals. So, by putting himself in the lawyer's
place, a possible solution of the problem occurred to him.

A couple of days before the election, Mr. Hutchings, who had been hard
at work till the evening among his chief subordinates, was making his
way homeward when Mr. Prentiss accosted him, with the request that he
would accompany him to his rooms for a few minutes on a matter of the
utmost importance. Having no good reason for refusing, Mr. Hutchings
followed the editor of the "Herald" up a flight of stair