very man for your scheme. Yes,
something--some such thing as you suggest--must be done to stop the
poisoning of public opinion against the country's best and strongest
men. The political department of the business interests ought to be as
thoroughly organized as the other departments are. Come to me again
after you're married."

I saw that his mind was fixed, that he would be unable to trust me until
I was of his class, of the aristocracy of corpulent corporate persons. I
went away much downcast; but, two weeks afterward he telegraphed for me,
and when I came he at once brought up the subject of the combine.

"Go ahead with it," he said. "I've been thinking it over and talking it
over. We shall need only nine others besides myself and you. You
represent the Ramsay interest."

He equipped me with the necessary letters of introduction and sent me
forth on a tour of my state. When it was ended, my "combine" was formed.
And _I_ was the combine,--was master of this political blind pool. I
had taken the first, the hardest step, toward the realization of my
dream of real political power,--to become an unbossed boss, not the
agent and servant of Plutocracy or Partizanship, but using both to
further my own purposes and plans.

I had thus laid out for myself the difficult feat of controlling two
fiery steeds. Difficult, but not impossible, if I should develop skill
as a driver--for the skilful driver has a hand so light that his horses
fancy they are going their own road at their own gait.

VI

MISS RAMSAY REVOLTS

The last remark Roebuck had made to me--on his doorstep, as I was
starting on my mission--was: "Can't you and Lottie hurry up that
marriage of yours? You ought to get it over and out of the way." When I
returned home with my mission accomplished, the first remark my mother
made after our greeting was: "Harvey, I wish you and Lottie were going
to marry a little sooner."

A note in her voice made me look swiftly at her, and then, without a
word, I was on my knees, my face in her lap and she stroking my head. "I
feel that I'm going to--to your father, dear," she said.

I heard and I thought I realized; but I did not. Who, feeling upon him
the living hand of love, was ever able to imagine that hand other than
alive? But her look of illness, of utter exhaustion,--_that_ I
understood and suffered for. "You must rest," said I; "you must sit
quiet and be waited on until you are strong again."

"Yes, I wil