en in
his life. For more than a day, now, he had been on the trail of a mighty
movement that he believed hidden from all save himself and those behind
this movement. He, too, had noticed the appearance at Chicago of the
heavy, rich, elderly men, and he had spoken to one or two of them with
all the respect and deference that their eminent position in the
financial world drew from every writer of the _Monitor_. And his
deference had been rewarded, because that afternoon he received a hint,
and it came from no less a personage than the Honorable Clinton
Goodnight himself, a hint that Churchill rightly thought was worth much
to him.

There was another large hotel in Milwaukee, and it was to this that the
financiers had gone, having ascertained first that Grayson would not be
there; nor did they intend to go to the speech that evening. They had
already, in the address at Chicago, weighed accurately the power of
Jimmy Grayson with his party, and with wary old eyes, long used to
watching the world and its people, they had seen that it would be great.
Hence he was a man to be handled with skill and care, to be led, not
knowing that he was led, by a bridle invisible to all save those who
held it--but they, the financiers, would know very well who held it.

It was these men to whom Churchill came, having slipped quietly away
from his associates, drawn by a hint that he might secure an interview
of great importance, two columns in length and exclusive. Churchill was
a true product of the _Monitor_, a worshipper of accomplished facts, a
supporter of every old convention, believing that anything new or in
rough attire was bad. Although he would have denied it if accused, he
nearly always confounded manners with morals, and to him the opinion of
Europe was final. Hence the _Monitor_ and Churchill were well suited to
each other. Moreover, Churchill enjoyed the society of the great--that
is, of those who seemed to him to be the great--and he had an admirable
flexibility of temperament; while easily able and willing to be very
nasty to those whom he thought of an inferior grade, he was equally able
and willing to be extremely deferential to those whose grade he
considered superior. He was also intolerant in opinion, thinking that
any one who differed from him on the subjects of the day was necessarily
a scoundrel, wherein he was again in perfect accord with the _Monitor_.

It was, therefore, with an acute delight, blossoming into exul