to Forrest's advantage, and Elmendorf felt that the more he
could make of them the better for his own cause and the worse for
Forrest. There had been an intangible something in Allison's manner to
warn the tutor that just so soon as the guests were out of the way he
might look out for squalls. Allison had greeted him with utter absence
of cordiality, and Elmendorf felt that his employer was even more
displeased with him than when he went away. Under such circumstances a
wise man would have avoided saying or doing anything to augment the
feeling against him, but Elmendorf, except in his own conceit, was far
from wise, and his propensity for putting his foot in it was phenomenal.
Allison loved his post-prandial cigar,--it agreed with him,--and so did
his guest. The ladies withdrew quite early, Cary slipped away, and
Elmendorf should have slipped after him, but here were two great men of
the railway world, the natural oppressors of the masses, the very type
of the creatures he delighted in describing upon the platform as
"bloated bond-holders;" their conversation could hardly fail to be of
interest to him, and he remained. Warming up to their work, they were
discussing the situation at Pullman and its probable effect upon the
employees of the roads centring in Chicago. That their views should be
radically opposed to those of their absorbed listener was of course to
be expected, and Elmendorf was fidgeting furiously upon his chair,
every now and then striving to interject a sentence and claim the floor,
but Allison knew his man, and knew that once started, Elmendorf could
not well be suppressed. Every attempt on the part of the tutor to
interpose, therefore, was met by uplifted and warning hand and prompt
"Permit me" or "Permit Mr. Sloan to finish, if you please," which was
galling in the last degree. Elmendorf had planned to have a conciliatory
word or two with Miss Allison, with whom he knew himself to have been in
grave disfavor ever since the occasion of his presuming to tender advice
and remonstrance on the score of Mr. Forrest, but she had escaped to her
own room again immediately after quitting the table. Her manner towards
him showed that she had neither forgiven nor forgotten the impertinence,
and that was additional reason why he should have done nothing more, in
that household at least, to add to the array of his offences. But
presently the opportunity came, and he could not resist. The Interstate
Commerce Law was