ncy and fair dealing. Heaven knows I'm no saint, but if
I stay here this cursed crookedness will get into my blood and I'll be
just as degraded as the worst of them. No, I'm not raving; there have
been times when I've felt myself slipping--times when I've been tempted
to get down and fight with the weapons that everybody fights with in
this God-forsaken, law-breaking, graft-ridden commonwealth!"

Gantry had risen and he was slowly shaking his head.

"You're hot now--and with good enough cause, I guess. But that sort of a
temperature makes a man near-sighted and color-blind. Human nature is
pretty much the same the world over, Evan, and if you could see beyond
the crookedness you'd find a lot of good people out here, averaging
about the same as the decent majority anywhere. It's an inarticulate
majority generally; it doesn't stand up on its hind legs and rear around
and call attention to itself--couldn't if it should try. But it's here
and there and everywhere in America, just the same. A railroad car with
one drunken fool in it gives you the idea. You focus on him and say,
'What a beastly shame!' and you entirely overlook the other fifty-odd
people in the car who are quietly minding their own business."

Blount's smile was for the man rather than for the theory.

"You are an implacable optimist, Dick, and you always have been," he
returned. "Your theory is good humanitarianism, and I wish I could
accept it as applying to this abandoned community out here in my native
hills; but I can't. Let's go back to the others. We've established a
sort of family _modus vivendi_, my father and I, and I don't want him to
think that I'm breaking it by plotting with you."

It was while the evening was still measurably young that Blount made his
excuses to his hostess and got away, fondly believing that he was
escaping without attracting the attention of the small lady who was deep
in a political discussion with candidate Gordon at the critical moment.
He was mistaken, but the escape was not interrupted. At the curb the
Blount touring-car was waiting, with two others, and for an instant
Blount hesitated, half inclined to ask his father's chauffeur, to drive
him down-town. On such inconsequent pivots fate, or accident, twirls the
most momentous affairs of life. If Blount had taken the car he would
have been driven directly to the hotel. As it was, he walked, and in
passing the Temple Court Building he remembered that he had not seen hi