breakfast-table or an edict uttered
in this library, which had been the motive power behind the news; and
which to the world at large remained an unseen impulse.

Now Bristoll heard a quick step coming down the stairs with a
schoolboy's buoyant lightness and the whistling of a popular air. It
might have been a college sophomore arriving light-heartedly from his
cold plunge, rather than the Titan whose word in the Street was already
a thing which no one of the older money-kings could ignore.

Carl Bristoll rose, and Hamilton Burton broke off his whistling to smile
gaily as he clapped the younger man on the shoulder and inquired with a
voice remarkably soft and musical, "Well, how is our young Minister of
Finance this morning?"

Hamilton Montagu Burton stood an even six feet, and from a generous
breadth of shoulders, swung back in free erectness, he tapered to a trim
slenderness of waist and thigh. In the immaculate elegance of his dress
he justified his reputation as the best-clothed man in New York, even
while he retained the grace of a seeming carelessness. His eyes, though
he had slept a scant four hours, looked out clear-pupiled and tireless,
but it was the shape and carriage of the head that proclaimed mastery.
The pattern of brow and jaw and clean-cut lip and indomitable eye gave
that head an alert power which made it the head of one born to command.
The illuminating smile could give way to a sternness and a decision that
became ruthless in its dominance, and the eyes could harden like
diamonds as swiftly as they could melt.

Carl Bristoll laughed, and after the custom of badinage that had grown
up between them he made a bow of mock ceremony as he replied.

"Quite fit, Sire, and your Majesty's appearance proclaims you equally
so."

It was hardly the sort of greeting that the outsider might have
expected, but neither financier nor secretary was an ordinary type and
between them throve an excellent understanding.

As Bristoll read from his notes Hamilton Burton's face lost its smile
and became instantly attentive while his questions snapped out
clear-clipped and comprehensive.

It seemed that the brain was separated into many zones, each carrying
forward its separate functions without interference or confusion.
Through the channels of vision, hearing and quick independent thought,
varied propositions were at one time being absorbed while the master
instinct of cooerdination was weighing all and planning yet