howing that I'm more
respectable than the respectable women. There's hardly one
of them that doesn't swallow worse doses with less excuse or
no excuse at all--and without so much as a wry face."

CHAPTER XX

IN the ten days on the Atlantic and the Mediterranean Mr. and
Mrs. Palmer, as the passenger list declared them, planned the
early stages of their campaign. They must keep to themselves,
must make no acquaintances, no social entanglements of any
kind, until they had effected the exterior transformation
which was to be the first stride--and a very long one, they
felt--toward the conquest of the world that commands all the
other worlds. Several men aboard knew Palmer slightly--knew
him vaguely as a big politician and contractor. They had a
hazy notion that he was reputed to have been a thug and a
grafter. But New Yorkers have few prejudices except against
guilelessness and failure. They are well aware that the
wisest of the wise Hebrew race was never more sagacious than
when he observed that "he who hasteth to be rich shall not be
innocent." They are too well used to unsavory pasts to bother
much about that kind of odor; and where in the civilized
world--or in that which is not civilized--is there an odor
from reputation--or character--whose edge is not taken off by
the strong, sweet, hypnotic perfume of money? Also, Palmer's
appearance gave the lie direct to any scandal about him. It
could not be--it simply could not be--that a man of such
splendid physical build, a man with a countenance so handsome,
had ever been a low, wicked fellow! Does not the devil always
at once exhibit his hoofs, horns, tail and malevolent smile,
that all men may know who and what he is? A frank, manly
young leader of men--that was the writing on his countenance.
And his Italian blood put into his good looks an ancient and
aristocratic delicacy that made it incredible that he was of
low origin. He spoke good English, he dressed quietly; he
did not eat with his knife; he did not retire behind a napkin
to pick his teeth, but attended to them openly, if necessity
compelled--and splendid teeth they were, set in a wide, clean
mouth, notably attractive for a man's. No, Freddie Palmer's
past would not give him any trouble whatever; in a few years
it would be forgotten, would be romanced about as the heroic
struggles of a typical American rising from poverty.

"Thank God," said Freddie, "I had sense enough not to get a
ja