or a play.
Still there was no move on the part of the police.

Then it was that the business men of Kenton City sat up in their office
chairs and began to think. This was an eventuality entirely outside the
calculations of McGrath. But the pachydermatous inertia of the citizens
of Alleghenia had yet its vulnerable spot, where the weapon might enter.
Vaguely these men had known that the state was rotten, but the fact had
never been brought to their attention in a manner so poignantly
suggestive before. Unwittingly McGrath had aroused the suspicion that it
was not the purse of Peter Rathbawne alone which was in danger. If it
was possible for disorder to go to such extremes in the very streets of
Kenton City without fear of interference or rebuke, then no man's
property was safe. That thought was the Achilles' heel of the community.
So it was that a Citizens' Committee, composed of presidents of two
insurance companies, directors from five banks, representatives from the
Chamber of Commerce and the Board of Trade, and, finally, Colonel Amos
Broadcastle, was appointed to wait upon the Mayor. That gentleman, as
was entirely to be expected, referred them to the Governor, and to the
Governor they went.

Barclay was present at the interview. For his own reasons Governor
Abbott had kept his immediate subordinate well to the fore in all
matters pertaining to the strike since the latter's rebuke to
McGrath,--in all matters, that is to say, not involving the exercise of
actual authority. Of that, indeed, the Lieutenant-Governor had had no
hope after the conversation in Peter Rathbawne's library. He met the
representatives of the press, conducted the correspondence with
mill-owners and other negatively interested parties, and at the
Governor's request made what was palpably a farcical inspection of the
entire state militia--to judge of their readiness for strike service!--a
task which consumed a fortnight in constant travel, and visits to
armories all alike in insufficient equipment and utter slovenliness. The
Ninth Regiment alone remained, and this command was to parade for
inspection by the Governor himself that very evening. The coincidence
flashed through Barclay's mind as the Citizens' Committee entered, with
Broadcastle, in his capacity as spokesman, at its head.

The dignity and air of command habitual to the Colonel of the Ninth were
doubly apparent as he advanced toward the Governor's table. Both Barclay
and Abbott rose