he awe, the dumb
amazement at the superb courage of this act? No, for a just comparison we
shall have to reach back to history and fable: David and Goliath; Theseus
and the Minotaur; or, better still, Cadmus and the Dragon! It was Cadmus
(if we remember rightly) who wasted no time whatever, but actually jumped
down the dragon's throat and cut him up from the inside! And it was
Cadmus, likewise, who afterwards sowed the dragon's teeth.

That wondrous clear and fresh summer morning of June the seventh will not
be forgotten for many years. The trees were in their early leaf in Ripton
Square, and the dark pine patches on Sawanec looked (from Austen's little
office) like cloud shadows against the shimmer of the tender green. He
sat at his table, which was covered with open law-books and papers, but
his eyes were on the distant mountain, and every scent-laden breeze
wafted in at his open window seemed the bearer of a tremulous, wistful,
yet imperious message--"Come!" Throughout the changing seasons Sawanec
called to him in words of love: sometimes her face was hidden by cloud
and fog and yet he heard her voice! Sometimes her perfume as to-day--made
him dream; sometimes, when the western heavens were flooded with the
golden light of the infinite, she veiled herself in magic purple, when to
gaze at her was an exquisite agony, and she became as one forbidden to
man. Though his soul cried out to her across the spaces, she was not for
him. She was not for him!

With a sigh he turned to his law-books again, and sat for a while staring
steadfastly at a section of the 'Act of Consolidation of the Northeastern
Railroads' which he had stumbled on that morning. The section, if he read
its meaning aright, was fraught with the gravest consequences for the
Northeastern Railroads; if he read its meaning aright, the Northeastern
Railroads had been violating it persistently for many years and were
liable for unknown sums in damages. The discovery of it had dazed him,
and the consequences resulting from a successful suit under the section
would be so great that he had searched diligently, though in vain, for
some modification of it since its enactment. Why had not some one
discovered it before? This query appeared to be unanswerable, until the
simple--though none the less remarkable--solution came to him, that
perhaps no definite occasion had hitherto arisen for seeking it.
Undoubtedly the Railroads' attorneys must know of its existence--his o