m,
interviews--concocted for the most part in the editorial rooms--were
printed. His picture appeared. He was described as a cool, calm man of
steel, with a cold and calculating grey eye, "piercing as an eagle's";
as a desperate gambler, bold as a buccaneer, his eye black and fiery--a
veritable pirate; as a mild, small man with a weak chin and a
deprecatory demeanour; as a jolly and roistering "high roller,"
addicted to actresses, suppers, and to bathing in champagne.

In the Democratic press he was assailed as little better than a thief,
vituperated as an oppressor of the people, who ground the faces of the
poor, and battened in the luxury wrung from the toiling millions. The
Republican papers spoke solemnly of the new era of prosperity upon
which the country was entering, referred to the stimulating effect of
the higher prices upon capitalised industry, and distorted the
situation to an augury of a sweeping Republican victory in the next
Presidential campaign.

Day in and day out Gretry's office, where Jadwin now fixed his
headquarters, was besieged. Reporters waited in the anteroom for whole
half days to get but a nod and a word from the great man. Promoters,
inventors, small financiers, agents, manufacturers, even "crayon
artists" and horse dealers, even tailors and yacht builders rubbed
shoulders with one another outside the door marked "Private."

Farmers from Iowa or Kansas come to town to sell their little quotas of
wheat at the prices they once had deemed impossible, shook his hand on
the street, and urged him to come out and see "God's own country."

But once, however, an entire deputation of these wheat growers found
their way into the sanctum. They came bearing a presentation cup of
silver, and their spokesman, stammering and horribly embarrassed in
unwonted broadcloth and varnished boots, delivered a short address. He
explained that all through the Middle West, all through the wheat
belts, a great wave of prosperity was rolling because of Jadwin's
corner. Mortgages were being paid off, new and improved farming
implements were being bought, new areas seeded new live stock acquired.
The men were buying buggies again, the women parlor melodeons, houses
and homes were going up; in short, the entire farming population of the
Middle West was being daily enriched. In a letter that Jadwin received
about this time from an old fellow living in "Bates Corners," Kansas,
occurred the words:

"--and, sir, you must