Mister," said V.V., looking round from his secretary. "Shut the
door."

"Oh!--_Garland_, hey? But he's swiped your best pants!"

"They were a gift," said V.V., with a touch of soberness. "_Sh!_ he'll
hear you."

"Oh!" said the Labor Commissioner again, and looked a little
disappointed.

He shut the door and came on in, a substantial figure in his glossy
suit. It was the 30th of January, and he had been taking on flesh
since October.

"Well, when'd _he_ blow in? Say, he's a ringer for Weary Waggles, all
right."

"Sometime in the night," replied the young man, tilting back in his
swivel-chair. "Mrs. G. found him in the entryway when she went down for
the milk, asleep in the Goldnagels' hall-rug. I'm afraid he's only come
to be outfitted again, and she will not be firm with him, no matter what
she promises.... By the way, they were not my best trousers at all,
except in a sort of technical sense. Never had 'em on but once, at a
funeral.--Well, how was the lunch with the Governor?"

The Commissioner, having pushed a new brown derby to the back of his
head, walked about.

"Pretty good," said he--"we had a very satisfactory talk. One of his
cigars I'm smoking now. I told him what I'd noticed around the State,
and gave him an outline of the legislation I want next year. Said my
ideas were just right. Paid me some nice compliments. Speaking of
legislation," added the Commissioner, flicking cigar-ash on the bare
floor with a slightly ruffled air, "you'll be interested to hear I've
been down to Heth's since I was in the other day. Saw Heth himself...."

The doctor remarked that he had been thinking of Heth's, not five
minutes before.

"I let Corinne go back to work this morning, you see--not that she's
well again yet by a good deal, or that that's the place for her at any
time. However.... You saw Mr. Heth himself?"

"Yair. I saw him--last time I'll fool with him, too! Says he guesses the
law's good enough for him. Told me pointblank he wouldn't spend a cent
till he had to. How's that for public spirit?"

Having halted by the secretary, the Commissioner looked down at his
friend in the open manner of a speaker confident of sympathy.

"Trouble is," said the friend, frowning and sketching circles over some
yesterday's memoranda, "Mr. Heth probably doesn't know anything about it
himself. Got a lot of other interests, you see. He allows that
blackguard MacQueen an absolute free hand at the Works--takes everything
h