argill took an easy position. "I don't know why I have sized you up as
literary in general effect, but I have. That's one reason why I took to
you. It's so damned unusual to find a politician that has a single idea
above votes. And then I'm literary myself," he said, his face a mask of
impenetrable gravity. "I wrote up the sheep industry of Iowa for the
Agricultural Encyclopaedia. That puts me in the front rank of Des Moines
literary aspirants.

"Towns like this," he said, going off on a speculative side track,
"have a two-per-cent. population who are inordinately literary. They
recognize my genius. The other ninety-eight per cent. don't care a
continental damn for Shakespeare or anybody else, barring Mary Jane
Holmes, of course, and the five-cent story papers. But literary Des
Moines _is_ literary. They stand by Shakespeare and Homer, I can tell
you, and they recognize genius when they see it. By the way, Bergen,"
he said, calling his brother-in-law to him again, "we must make this
young man acquainted with our one literary girl."

"Wheat is ninety-four bid. New York strong." It was impossible to hold
Bergen's attention, however, with a sharp bulge on the market, and
Cargill was forced to turn to Bradley again.

"There is a girl in this town who has the literary quality. True, she
has recognized my ability, which prejudices me in her favor, of course.
In turn I presented her with my report on the sheep industry."

Bradley laughed, but Cargill proceeded as if there were nothing funny
in the situation--

"And she read it, actually, and quoted it in one of her great speeches.
It made the reporter bug out his eyes. He said he had observed of late
quite a vein of poetry running through Miss Wilbur's speeches, which
lifted them out of the common rut."

Bradley lost sight of the humor in this speech at the sound of Ida's
name, and his face flushed. He had not heard her name spoken by a third
person in months, and had never dared to say it out loud himself.

Cargill went on: "She's an infernal heretic and suffragist and all
that, but she's a power. Her name is Wilbur--Ida Wilbur. Used to
lecture for the Grange or something of that kind. Is still lecturing, I
believe, but the Grange has snuffed out."

Six or eight men came into the larger room talking loudly and excitedly
about the market, and Cargill's attention was drawn off by the resonant
reports of the Chicago market.

"The market shows great elasticity. Western