early in that high atmosphere, but while it pumps it sends out no
sluggish stream. Our two friends stood gripping each other by the hand
and smiling.

"When did you get in, Fred? And what have you come for?" Archie gave him
a quizzical glance.

"I've come to find out what you think you're doing out here," the
younger man declared emphatically. "I want to get next, I do. When can
you see me?"

"Anything on to-night? Then suppose you dine with me. Where can I pick
you up at five-thirty?"

"Bixby's office, general freight agent of the Burlington." Ottenburg
began to button his overcoat and drew on his gloves. "I've got to have
one shot at you before I go, Archie. Didn't I tell you Pinky Alden was a
cheap squirt?"

Alden's backer laughed and shook his head. "Oh, he's worse than that,
Fred. It isn't polite to mention what he is, outside of the Arabian
Nights. I guessed you'd come to rub it into me."

Ottenburg paused, his hand on the doorknob, his high color challenging
the doctor's calm. "I'm disgusted with you, Archie, for training with
such a pup. A man of your experience!"

"Well, he's been an experience," Archie muttered. "I'm not coy about
admitting it, am I?"

Ottenburg flung open the door. "Small credit to you. Even the women are
out for capital and corruption, I hear. Your Governor's done more for
the United Breweries in six months than I've been able to do in six
years. He's the lily-livered sort we're looking for. Good-morning."

That afternoon at five o'clock Dr. Archie emerged from the State House
after his talk with Governor Alden, and crossed the terrace under a
saffron sky. The snow, beaten hard, was blue in the dusk; a day of
blinding sunlight had not even started a thaw. The lights of the city
twinkled pale below him in the quivering violet air, and the dome of the
State House behind him was still red with the light from the west.
Before he got into his car, the doctor paused to look about him at the
scene of which he never tired. Archie lived in his own house on Colfax
Avenue, where he had roomy grounds and a rose garden and a conservatory.
His housekeeping was done by three Japanese boys, devoted and
resourceful, who were able to manage Archie's dinner parties, to see
that he kept his engagements, and to make visitors who stayed at the
house so comfortable that they were always loath to go away.

Archie had never known what comfort was until he became a widower,
though with characteristic del