mother the next morning. "And what a
nice girl Miss Ramsay is,--so sensible, so intelligent, and so
friendly!" said my mother, relating the incidents of the visit in minute
detail when I went home at noon.

"I didn't find her especially friendly," said I. Whereat I saw, or
fancied I saw, a smile deep down in her eyes,--and it set me to
thinking.

In the afternoon Ed looked in at my office in the court-house to say
good-by. "But first, old man, I want to tell you I got that place for
you. I thought I had better use the wire. Old Roebuck is
delighted,--telegraphed me to close the arrangement at
once,--congratulated me on being able to get you. I knew it'd be so. He
has his eyes skinned for bright young men,--all those big men have.
Whenever a fellow, especially a bright young lawyer, shows signs of
ability, they scoop him in."

"I can't believe it," said I, dazed. "I've been fighting him for four
years--hard."

"That's it!" said he. "And don't you fret about its being a case of
trying to heap coals of fire on your head. Roebuck don't use the
fire-shovel for that sort of thing. He's snapping you up because you've
shown him what you can do. That's the way to get on nowadays, they tell
me. Whenever the fellows on top find the chap, especially one in public
office, who makes it hot for them, they hire him. Good business all
around."

Thus, so suddenly that it giddied me, I was translated from failure to
success, from poverty to affluence, from the most harassing anxiety to
ease and security. Two months before I should have rejected the Power
Trust's offer with scorn, and should have gloried in my act as proof of
superior virtue. But in those crucial two months I had been apprentice
to the master whom all men that ever come to anything in this world must
first serve. I had reformed my line of battle, had adjusted it to the
lines laid down in the tactics of Life-as-it-is.

Before I was able to convince myself that my fortunes had really
changed, Ed Ramsay telegraphed me to call on him in Fredonia on business
of his own. It proved to be such a trifle that I began to puzzle at his
real reason for sending for me. When he spun that trifle out over ten
days, on each of which I was alone with Carlotta at least half my waking
hours, I thought I had the clue to the mystery. I saw how I could
increase the energy of his new enthusiasm for me, and, also, how I could
cool it, if I wished to be rash and foolish and to tempt fate ag