have read or studied anything beyond drill and dime novels was
not to be expected. The magnates had even had their modest game of draw
poker at a late hour and laughingly referred some mooted question to
Forrest as a probable expert, and were astonished to hear that he had
never played, not so much because he disapproved of it as because he had
never had time. Allison had already found out that Forrest was a student
and a thinker, but up to that evening he was the only man of the party
who believed that the average officer had any other use for time than to
kill it. Whatever it was that Mr. Forrest might have said to Mr. Sloan,
it was evident he did not care to repeat it now.

"I would rather not reopen the matter," said he. "Possibly I had no
right to forecast the action of the government, even speculatively, in a
contingency that may not arise."

Elmendorf planted his chair and lighted a cigarette, throwing himself
down with an air as much as to say, "Well, I've got to be bored and must
be resigned to it, since they won't listen to a man of intelligence;"
and Allison, with blacker gloom in his eyes, looked squarely at him as
he began to speak:

"Sloan, you're not even sipping your wine; Forrest, you never seem to
indulge. Suppose we three adjourn to my den, where the books are right
at hand. Mr. Elmendorf has his duties and will excuse us."

If he had struck him, the master of the house could not more have stung
his employee. Even Forrest, who by this time had many reasons of his own
for bringing Elmendorf to book, tingled with something like sympathy at
a slight so marked. There were so many other and better ways of letting
Elmendorf know that in the coming conference his presence could be
dispensed with, that Sloan spoke of it the moment they reached the
library; but Allison was imperious and positive. "You don't begin to
know the man," said he. "Anything less than unmistakable prohibition he
would consider as invitation, and he'd turn our talk into a lecture on
the relations of capital to labor. You saw how he got in the instant I
stopped a moment, Sloan."

"Faith and I did," said Sloan, laughing, "and he hit you fellows in the
ribs. Why, where'd he find it all out?"

"I'm blessed if I know, unless it was from the newspaper men. They get
hold of almost everything,--wrong side foremost, as a rule, but they get
it. Now I heard something of your talk last night. Brooks was speaking
of it. He looks upon the Inte