rom his
labor, his relaxation was the reading of novels of romance, of
adventure--novels that told of strange places and strange peoples.
Between the after-dinner hour and bedtime, or while his yacht picked
her way up the Sound, these tales filled him with surprise. Often he
would exclaim admiringly: "I don't see how these fellows think up such
things."

He did not know that, in his own business, there were melodramas,
romances which made those of the fiction-writers ridiculous.

And so, when young Sam Caldwell, the third vice-president, told Mr.
Forrester that if the company hoped to obtain the money it had sunk
in Venezuela it must finance a revolution, Mr. Forrester, without
question, consented to the expense, and put it down under "Political."
Had Sam Caldwell shown him that what was needed was a construction-raft
or a half-dozen giant steam-shovels, he would have furnished the money
as readily and with as little curiosity.

Sam Caldwell, the third vice-president, was a very smart young man.
Every one, even men much older than he, said as much, and no one was
more sure of it than was Sam Caldwell himself. His vanity on that
point was, indeed, his most prepossessing human quality.

He was very proud of his freedom from those weak scruples that
prevented rival business men from underbidding the F. C. C. He
congratulated himself on the fact that at thirty-four he was much more
of a cynic than men of sixty. He held no illusions, and he rejoiced
in a sense of superiority over those of his own class in college, who,
in matters of business, were still hampered by old-time traditions.

If in any foreign country the work of the F. C. C. was halted by
politicians, it was always Sam Caldwell who was sent across the sea to
confer with them. He could quote you the market-price on a Russian
grand-duke, or a Portuguese colonial governor, as accurately as he
could that of a Tammany sachem. His was the non-publicity department.
People who did not like him called him Mr. Forrester's jackal. When
the lawyers of the company had studied how they could evade the law on
corporations, and had shown how the officers of the F. C. C. could do
a certain thing and still keep out of jail, Sam Caldwell was the man
who did that thing.

He had been to Venezuela "to look over the ground," and he had
reported that President Alvarez must go, and that some one who would
be friendly to the F. C. C. must be put in his place. That was all Mr.
Forr