e owner shoved
the shekels into his ample pockets and sat down in the mule's shadow to
escape the sun; and the new owner brought suit to recover the rent due
him for the occupation of the shadow cast by his donkey.

There was also a mule which waited seven years to kick.

There are asses and mules and all sorts of shadows. The ordinance of
authority can affect only the shadow; the substance is immutable.

Among other serious gentlemen of consideration and means who had been
unaccustomed to haunt the metropolis in the dog days was Colonel
Alexander Mallett, President of the Half Moon Trust Company, and
incidentally Duane's father.

His town-house was still open, although his wife and daughter were in
the country. To it, in the comparative cool of the August evenings, came
figures familiar in financial circles; such men as Magnelius Grandcourt,
father of Delancy; and Remsen Tappan, and James Cray.

Others came and went, men of whom Duane had read in the newspapers--very
great men who dressed very simply, very powerful men who dressed
elaborately; and some were young and red-faced with high living, and one
was damp of hair and long-nosed, with eyes set a trifle too close
together; and one fulfilled every external requisite for a "good
fellow"; and another was very old, very white, with a nut-cracker jaw
and faded eyes, blue as an unweaned pup's, and a cream-coloured wig
curled glossily over waxen ears and a bloodless and furrowed neck.

All these were very great men; but they and Colonel Mallett journeyed at
intervals into the presence of a greater man who inhabited, all alone,
except for a crew of a hundred men, an enormous yacht, usually at
anchor off the white masonry cliffs of the seething city.

All alone this very great man inhabited the huge white steamer; and they
piped him fore and they piped him aft and they piped him over the side.
Many a midnight star looked down at the glowing end of his black cigar;
many a dawn shrilled with his boatswain's whistle. He was a very, very
great man; none was greater in New York town.

It was said of him that he once killed a pompous statesman--by ridicule:

"I know who _you_ are!" panted a ragged urchin, gazing up in awe as the
famous statesman approached his waiting carriage.

"And who am I, my little man?"

"You are the great senator from New York."

"Yes--you are right. _But_"--and he solemnly pointed his gloved
forefinger toward heaven--"but, remember, there is