Judiciary Committee of the House--an
apparently innocent little bill--will enable, if it becomes a law, the
Boyne Iron Works, of your city, to take possession of the Ribblevale
Steel Company, lock, stock, and barrel. And I am told it was conceived by
a lawyer who claims to be a respectable member of his profession, and who
has extraordinary ability, Theodore Watling."

Krebs put his hand in his pocket and drew out a paper. "Here's a copy of
it,--House Bill 709." His expression suddenly changed. "Perhaps Mr.
Watling is a friend of yours."

"I'm with his firm," I replied....

Krebs's fingers closed over the paper, crumpling it.

"Oh, then, you know about this," he said. He was putting the paper back
into his pocket when I took it from him. But my adroitness, so carefully
schooled, seemed momentarily to have deserted me. What should I say? It
was necessary to decide quickly.

"Don't you take rather a--prejudiced view of this, Krebs?" I said. "Upon
my word, I can't see why you should accept a rumour running around the
lobbies that Mr. Watling drafted this bill for a particular purpose."

He was silent. But his eyes did not leave my face.

"Why should any sensible man, a member of the legislature, take stock in
that kind of gossip?" I insisted. "Why not judge this bill by its face,
without heeding a cock and bull story as to how it may have originated?
It is a good bill, or a bad bill? Let's see what it says."

I read it.

"So far as I can see, it is legislation which we ought to have had long
ago, and tends to compel a publicity in corporation affairs that is much
needed, to put a stop to practices which every decent citizen deplores."

He drew the paper out of my hand.

"You needn't go on, Paret," he told me. "It's no use."

"Well, I'm sorry we don't agree," I said, and got up. I left him twisting
the paper in his fingers.

Beside the clerk's desk in the Potts House, relating one of his
anecdotes, I spied Colonel Varney, and managed presently to draw him
upstairs to his room. "What's the matter?" he asked.

"Do you know a man named Krebs in the House?" I said.

"From Elkington? Why, that's the man the Hutchinses let slip
through,--the Hutchinses, who own the mills over there. The agitators put
up a job on them." The Colonel was no longer the genial and social
purveyor of anecdotes. He had become tense, alert, suspicious. "What's he
up to?"

"He's found out about this bill," I replied.

"How?"

"I don