s wife than the
wife of Rockefeller himself or the King of England."

"What's the matter?" I asked in alarm.

"The Oligarchy is about to tread upon our faces--yours and mine. Wickson
as much as told me so. He was very kind--for an oligarch. He offered to
reinstate me in the university. What do you think of that? He, Wickson,
a sordid money-grabber, has the power to determine whether I shall or
shall not teach in the university of the state. But he offered me even
better than that--offered to make me president of some great college of
physical sciences that is being planned--the Oligarchy must get rid of
its surplus somehow, you see.

"'Do you remember what I told that socialist lover of your daughter's?'
he said. 'I told him that we would walk upon the faces of the working
class. And so we shall. As for you, I have for you a deep respect as
a scientist; but if you throw your fortunes in with the working
class--well, watch out for your face, that is all.' And then he turned
and left me."

"It means we'll have to marry earlier than you planned," was Ernest's
comment when we told him.

I could not follow his reasoning, but I was soon to learn it. It was at
this time that the quarterly dividend of the Sierra Mills was paid--or,
rather, should have been paid, for father did not receive his. After
waiting several days, father wrote to the secretary. Promptly came
the reply that there was no record on the books of father's owning any
stock, and a polite request for more explicit information.

"I'll make it explicit enough, confound him," father declared, and
departed for the bank to get the stock in question from his safe-deposit
box.

"Ernest is a very remarkable man," he said when he got back and while
I was helping him off with his overcoat. "I repeat, my daughter, that
young man of yours is a very remarkable young man."

I had learned, whenever he praised Ernest in such fashion, to expect
disaster.

"They have already walked upon my face," father explained. "There was no
stock. The box was empty. You and Ernest will have to get married pretty
quickly."

Father insisted on laboratory methods. He brought the Sierra Mills into
court, but he could not bring the books of the Sierra Mills into court.
He did not control the courts, and the Sierra Mills did. That explained
it all. He was thoroughly beaten by the law, and the bare-faced robbery
held good.

It is almost laughable now, when I look back on it, the way f