was impressed by the
felicity with which a cartoonist of the Pilot had once caricatured him by
the use of curved lines. The circle of the heavy eyebrows ended at the
wide nostrils; the mouth was a crescent, but bowed downwards; the heavy
shoulders were rounded. Indeed, the only straight line to be discerned
about him was that of his hair, black as bitumen, banged across his
forehead; even his polished porphyry eyes were constructed on some
curvilinear principle, and never seemed to focus. It might be said of Mr.
Gorse that he had an overwhelming impersonality. One could never be quite
sure that one's words reached the mark.

In spite of the intimacy which I knew existed between them, in my
presence at least Mr. Gorse's manner was little different with Mr.
Watling than it was with other men. Mr. Wading did not seem to mind. He
pulled up a chair close to the desk and began, without any preliminaries,
to explain his errand.

"It's about the Ribblevale affair," he said. "You know we have a suit."

Gorse nodded.

"We've got to get at the books, Miller,--that's all there is to it. I
told you so the other day. Well, we've found out a way, I think."

He thrust his hand in his pocket, while the railroad attorney remained
impassive, and drew out the draft of the bill. Mr. Gorse read it, then
read it over again, and laid it down in front of him.

"Well," he said.

"I want to put that through both houses and have the governor's signature
to it by the end of the week."

"It seems a little raw, at first sight, Theodore," said Mr. Gorse, with
the suspicion of a smile.

My chief laughed a little.

"It's not half so raw as some things I might mention, that went through
like greased lightning," he replied. "What can they do? I believe it will
hold water. Tallant's, and most of the other newspapers in the state,
won't print a line about it, and only Socialists and Populists read the
Pilot. They're disgruntled anyway. The point is, there's no other way out
for us. Just think a moment, bearing in mind what I've told you about the
case, and you'll see it."

Mr. Gorse took up the paper again, and read the draft over.

"You know as well as I do, Miller, how dangerous it is to leave this
Ribblevale business at loose ends. The Carlisle steel people and the Lake
Shore road are after the Ribblevale Company, and we can't afford to run
any risk of their getting it. It's logically a part of the Boyne
interests, as Scherer says, and Di