up by the bench heard the slap of the checkerboard on its
shelf, and General Ward cut into the conversation as one who had never
been out of it. "The boy's got good blood in him; it will come out
some day--he wasn't made a Thatcher and a Barclay and a Winthrop for
nothing. Lizzie was over there the other night for tea with them, and
she said she hadn't seen John so much like himself for years."

Young Ward went about his afternoon's work and the parliament
continued its debate on miscellaneous public business. The general
pulled the _Times_ from Dolan's pocket and began turning it over. He
stopped and read for a few moments and exclaimed:--

"Boys--see here. Maybe this explains something we were talking
about." He began reading a news item sent out from Washington, D.C.
The item stated that the Department of Commerce and Labour had scored
what every one in official circles believed was the most important
victory ever achieved by the government outside of a war. The item
continued:--

"Within the last ten days, the head of one of the largest so-called
trusts in this country called at the department, and explained that
his organization, which controls a great staple commodity, was going
into voluntary liquidation. The organization in question has been
the subject of governmental investigation for nearly two years, and
investigators were constantly hampered and annoyed by attempts of
politicians of the very highest caste, outside of the White House,
trying to get inspectors removed or discredited, and all along the
line of its investigations the government has felt a powerful secret
influence shielding the trust. As an evidence of his good faith in
the disorganization, the head of the trust, while he was here,
promised to send to the White House, what he called his 'political
burglar's kit,' consisting of a card index, labelling and ticketing
with elaborate cross references and cabinet data, every man in the
United States who is in politics far enough to get to his state
legislature, or to be a nominee of his party for county attorney.
This outfit, shipped in a score of great boxes, was dumped at the
White House to-day, and it is said that a number of the cards
indicating the reputation of certain so-called conservative senators
and congressmen may be framed. There is a great hubbub in
Washington, and the newspaper correspondents who call