and daughters, of the club and social world of New York,
old Poultney Masters, in the apoplectic rages into which the slightest
thwart to his will plunged him. To Enderby's adroitness the financier
(one of whose pet vanities was a profound and wholly baseless faith in
himself as a connoisseur of art) owed it that he had not become a
laughing-stock through his purchase of a pair of particularly flagrant
Murillos, planted for his special behoof by a gang of clever Italian
swindlers. Rumor had it that when Enderby had privately summed up his
client's case for his client's benefit before his client as referee, in
these words: "And, Mr. Masters, if you act again in these matters
without consulting me, you must find another lawyer; I cannot afford
fools for clients"--they had to call in a physician and resort to the
ancient expedient of bleeding, to save the great man's cerebral arteries
from bursting.

Toward the public press, Enderby's attitude was the exact reverse of
Horace Vanney's. For himself, he unaffectedly disliked and despised
publicity; for the interests which he represented, he delegated it to
others. He would rarely be interviewed; his attitude toward the
newspapers was consistently repellent. Consequently his infrequent
utterances were treasured as pearls, and given a prominence far above
those of the too eager and over-friendly Mr. Vanney, who, incidentally,
was his associate on the directorate of the Law Enforcement Society. The
newspapers did not like Willis Enderby any more than he liked them. But
they cherished for him an unrequited respect.

That a reporter, a nobody of yesterday whose association with The Ledger
constituted his only claim to any status whatever, should profess
indifference to a summons from a man of Enderby's position, suggested
affectation to Mr. Greenough's suspicions. Young Mr. Banneker's head was
already swelling, was it? Very well; in the course of time and his
duties, Mr. Greenough would apply suitable remedies.

If Banneker were, indeed, taking a good conceit of himself from the
conspicuous position achieved so unexpectedly, the morning papers did
nothing to allay it. Most of them slurred over, as lightly as possible,
the fact of his journalistic connection; as in the evening editions, the
yacht feature was kept to the fore. There were two exceptions. The
Ledger itself, in a colorless and straightforward article, frankly
identified the hero of the episode, in the introductory se