d to
the city in summer by a strike, his granddaughter openly gone over
to his enemy, his own son, so long his tool and his creature, merely
staying in his house to handle him, an income tax law that sent him to
his lawyers with new protests almost daily! A man was no longer master
even in his own home. His employees would not work for him, his family
disobeyed him, his government held him up and shook him. In the good old
days--

"I'm going out," he said, as he rose from the table. "Grace, that chef
is worse than the last. You'd better send him off."

"I can't get any one else. I have tried for weeks. There are no servants
anywhere."

"Try New York."

"I have tried--it is useless."

No cooks, either. No servants. Even Anthony recognized that, with the
exception of Grayson, the servants in his house were vaguely hostile
to the family. They gave grudging service, worked short hours, and,
the only class of labor to which the high cost of food was a negligible
matter, demanded wages he considered immoral.

"I don't know what the world's coming to," he snarled. "Well, I'm off.
Thank God, there are still clubs for a man to go to."

"I want to have a talk with you, father."

"I don't want to talk."

"You needn't. I want you to listen, and I want Grace to hear, too."

In the end he went unwillingly into the library, and when Grayson had
brought liqueurs and coffee and had gone, Howard drew the card from his
pocket.

"I met young Denslow to-day," he said. "He came in to see me. As a
matter of fact, I signed a card he had brought along, and I brought one
for you, sir. Shall I read it?"

"You evidently intend to."

Howard read the card slowly. Its very simplicity was impressive, as
impressive as it had been when Willy Cameron scrawled the words on the
back of an old envelope. Anthony listened.

"Just what does that mean?"

"That the men behind this movement believe that there is going to be a
general strike, with an endeavor to turn it into a revolution. Perhaps
only local, but these things have a tendency to spread. Denslow had some
literature which referred to an attempt to take over the city. They have
other information, too, all pointing the same way."

"Strikers?"

"Foreign strikers, with the worst of the native born. Their plans are
fairly comprehensive; they mean to dynamite the water works, shut down
the gas and electric plants, and cut off all food supplies. Then when
they have starved and terrori