ve now, sir."

"Is it open to the newspapers?"

"Closed doors--absolutely private."

"Who'll give out the statement?"

Farr put his hand on the reporter's shoulder and gave him a smile.

"You see, it's to fight the packers' union and so we are not giving away
our ammunition to the enemy. Keep it quiet and when the thing breaks
I'll give you our side."

"All right, sir. If it's to be an exclusive for me I'll steer away the
other newspaper men. But do you know just why Richard Dodd--that man
over there--is damning you into shoe-strings?"

Even at that distance Farr's keen gaze detected the filmy eyes and the
flushed face.

"Perhaps it's because the Corn-Growers propose to put their corn into
johnny-bread instead of using it for whisky?"

The newspaper man, his suspicions dulled by Farr's radiant good nature
and wholesome frankness, went away about his business, but he halted
long enough beside Dodd's chair to repeat "the corn-grower's" joke
regarding the young man who had been glowering on him.

Dodd got up with as much alacrity as he could command and went across
to Farr. Sober, the nephew of Colonel Dodd had treated this person
with rather lofty contempt; drunk, he was not so finical in matters
of caste--and, besides, this man now wore the garb of a gentleman, and
young Mr. Dodd always placed much emphasis on clothes.

"Look here, my fellow, now that I have you where I don't need to
consider the presence of ladies, I want to ask you how you dared to mess
into my private business?"

Farr, towering above him, beamed down on him with tolerant indifference
and did not answer.

"That Lochinvar business may sound good in a poem, but it doesn't go
here in Marion--not when it's my business and my girl."

Dodd raised his voice. He seemed about to become a bit hysterical.

Farr set slow, gripping, commanding clutch about the young man's elbow.

"If your business with me can possibly be any talk about a lady," he
advised, "you'd better come along into the reading-room."

"It is about a lady," persisted Dodd when they had swung in behind a
newspaper-rack. The room was apparently empty. "You understand what you
came butting in upon, don't you?"

"I took it to be a rehearsal of a melodrama, crudely conceived and very
poorly played."

"Say, you use pretty big words for a low-lived iceman."

"State your business with me if you have any," Farr reminded him. "I
have something else to do besides swap talk with a d