ew many methods in business with which Duncan was not
familiar.

As soon as he was notified by the capitalists with whom he was
negotiating that they had employed Duncan to examine and report, and
that their final decision would be largely influenced by his judgment,
Tandy, with special politeness, wrote to Duncan, asking him to call at
his house that evening "for a little consultation on business affairs
that may interest both of us."

Duncan well knew that he had offended Tandy in the matter of the coal
cars, but as Tandy had made no sign, he could see no possible reason for
refusing this request for a business consultation. Moreover, Guilford
Duncan felt himself under a double responsibility. He felt that he must
not only guard and promote the interests of those who had employed him
to study this question, but that he was also under obligations to
consider carefully the interests involved on the other side. His
function, he felt, was essentially a judicial one. He knew one side of
the case. It was his duty to hear the other, and Tandy was the spokesman
of that other.

Duncan's reception at Tandy's house was most gracious. The gentlewomen
of the family were present to greet him, and Mrs. Tandy said, in
welcoming him:

"Sometimes I feel like hating business--it so dreadfully occupies you
men. But just now I am in love with business because it brings you to us
in our home. We have never before had the honor of even a call from you,
Mr. Duncan."

"I have given little attention to social duties, Mrs. Tandy," Duncan
began apologetically. "I have done next to no calling. You see----"

"Oh, yes, I know how it is. Mr. Tandy says you are the most 'earnest'
young man in Cairo, and of course we poor women folk understand that you
are too much engaged with what Mr. Tandy calls 'affairs,' to give any
time to us. But I am glad to greet you now, and to welcome you to our
home. Perhaps, some day, when you and Mr. Tandy and--and Captain
Hallam--have got all the things done that you want done, you will have
more time for social duties. Mr. Tandy tells me you have achieved a
remarkable success. He says you will soon be reckoned a rich man, and
that you are already a man of very great influence. Now, I shouldn't say
these things if I had any daughters to marry off. As I haven't any
daughters, of course I am privileged. But I seriously want to say that
you have won Mr. Tandy's regard in so great a degree that he is planning
to mak