ate and federal office-holder has been distributing passes
for the last three weeks."

"Pass?" repeated the baron. "You mean they fight with the fist--so? To
distribute a pass--so," and the baron struck out at an imaginary enemy.
"It is the American language. I have read it in the prize-fight. I am
told to read the prize-fight and the base-ball game."

Mr. Crewe thought it obviously useless to continue this conversation.

"The railroad," said the baron, "he is the modern Machiavelli."

"I say," Mr. Rangely, the Englishman, remarked to Victoria, "this is a
bit rough on you, you know."

"Oh, I'm used to it," she laughed.

"Mr. Crewe," said Mrs. Pomfret, to the table at large, "deserves
tremendous credit for the fight he has made, almost single-handed.
Our greatest need in this country is what you have in England, Mr.
Rangely,--gentlemen in politics. Our country gentlemen, like Mr. Crewe,
are now going to assume their proper duties and responsibilities." She
laid her napkin on the table and glanced at Alice as she continued:
"Humphrey, I shall have to appoint you, as usual, the man of the house.
Will you take the gentlemen into the library?"

Another privilege of celebrity is to throw away one's cigar, and walk
out of the smoking room if one is bored. Mr. Crewe was, in a sense, the
host. He indicated with a wave of his hand the cigars and cigarettes
which Mrs. Pomfret had provided, and stood in a thoughtful manner before
the empty fireplace, with his hands in his pockets, replying in brief
sentences to the questions of Mr. Chillingham and the others. To tell
the truth, Mr. Crewe was bringing to bear all of his extraordinary
concentration of mind upon a problem with which he had been occupied
for some years past. He was not a man, as we know, to take the important
steps of life in a hurry, although; like the truly great, he was capable
of making up his mind in a very brief period when it was necessary to
strike. He had now, after weighing the question with the consideration
which its gravity demanded, finally decided upon definite action.
Whereupon he walked out of the library, leaving the other guests to
comment as they would; or not comment at all, for all he cared. Like all
masterful men, he went direct to the thing he wanted.

The ladies were having coffee under the maples, by the tea-table. At
some little distance from the group Beatrice Chillingham was walking
with Victoria, and it was evident that Victoria fo