get out. When I
came back, I sent Rogers over to Cassatti's to see if he could find you.
There was a junto dinner confab on; Meigs, Senator Crowley, three or four
of the ring aldermen and half a dozen wa-ward politicians. Rogers has a
nose for news, and when he had 'phoned me you weren't there, he hung
around on the edges."

"Good men you have, Hildreth. What did the unimpeachable Rogers see?"

"He saw on a large scale just what I had seen on a small one: somebody
pup-passed a note in, and when it had gone the round of the dinner-table
those fellows tumbled over each other trying to get away."

"Is that all?" Kent inquired.

"No. Apart from his nose, Rogers is gifted with horse sense. When the
dinner crowd boarded an up-town car, our man paid fare to the same
conductor. He wired me from the Hotel Brunswick a few minutes ago. There
is some sort of a caucus going on in Hendricks' office in the capitol, and
mum-messengers are flying in all directions."

"And you wanted me to come and tell you all the whys and wherefores?" Kent
suggested.

"I told the chief I'd bet a bub-blind horse to a broken-down mule you
could do it if anybody could."

"All right; listen: something worse than an hour ago the governor, his
private secretary, Guilford, Hawk and Halkett started out on a special
train to go to Gaston."

"What for?" interrupted the editor.

"To meet Judge MacFarlane, Mr. Semple Falkland, and the Overland
officials. You can guess what was to be done?"

"Sure. Your railroad was to be sold out, lock, stock and barrel; or leased
to the Overland for ninety-nine years--which amounts to the same thing."

"Precisely. Well, by some unaccountable mishap the receiver's special was
switched over to the Western Division at yard limits, and the engineer
seems to think he has orders to proceed westward. At all events, that is
what he is doing. And the funny part of it is that he can't stop to find
out his blunder. The fast mail is right behind him, with the receiver's
order to smash anything that gets in its way; so you see--"

"That will do," said the night editor. "We don't print fairy stories in
the _Argus_."

"None the less, you are going to print this one to-morrow morning, just as
I'm telling it to you," Kent asserted confidently. "And when you get the
epilogue you will say that it makes my little preface wearisome by
contrast."

The light was slowly dawning in the editorial mind.

"My heaven!" he exclaimed. "Kent