appens often enough in a conventionalized world. David Kent, with his
tragedy fresh upon him, dropped informally into place as one of the party
of five; and of all the others, Penelope alone suspected how hard he was
hit. And when all was said; when the new _modus vivendi_ had been fairly
established and the hour grew late, Kent went voluntarily with Ormsby to
the smoking-compartment, "to play the string out decently," as he
afterward confessed to Loring.

"I see you know how to get the most comfort out of your tobacco," said the
club-man, when they were companionably settled in the men's room and Kent
produced his pipe and tobacco pouch. "I prefer the pipe myself, for a
steady thing; but at this time of night a light Castilla fits me pretty
well. Try one?" tendering his cigar-case.

Fighting shrewdly against a natural prompting to regard Ormsby as an
hereditary enemy, Kent forced himself to be neighborly.

"I don't mind," he said, returning the pipe to its case. And when the
Havanas were well alight, and the talk had circled down upon the political
situation in the State, he was able to bear his part with a fair exterior,
giving Ormsby an impressionistic outline of the late campaign and the
conditions that had made the sweeping triumph of the People's Party
possible.

"We have been coming to it steadily through the last administration, and a
part of the preceding one," he explained. "Last year the drought cut the
cereals in half, and the country was too new to stand it without
borrowing. There was little local capital, and the eastern article was
hungry, taking all the interest the law allows, and as much more as it
could get. This year the crop broke all records for abundance, but the
price is down and the railroads, trying to recoup for two bad years, have
stiffened the freight rates. The net result is our political overturn."

"Then the railroads and the corporations are not primarily to blame?" said
Ormsby.

"Oh, no. Corporations here, as elsewhere, are looking out for the present
dollar, but if the country were generally prosperous, the people would pay
the tax carelessly, as they do in the older sections. With us it has been
a sort of Donnybrook Fair: the agricultural voter has shillalahed the head
he could reach most easily."

The New Yorker nodded. His millions were solidly placed, and he took no
more than a sportsman's interest in the fluctuations of the stock market.

"Of course, there have been all s