any, several of whose considerable stockholders were members of the
institution's board of trustees. The "Clarion" made loud and lamentable
noises about this, and the board reconsidered hastily. Louder and much
more lamentable were the noises made by the president of the university,
the Reverend Dr. Knight, a little brother of one of the richest and
greatest of the national corporations, in denunciation of the "Clarion":
so much so, indeed, that they were published abroad, thereby giving the
paper much extensive free advertising.

Pleasant memories, these, to Hal. Not always pleasant, perhaps, but at
least vividly interesting, the widely varying types with whom his
profession had brought him into contact: McGuire Ellis, "Tip" O'Farrell,
the Reverend Norman Hale, Dr. Merritt, Elias M.--

The mechanism of thought checked with a wrench. Pierce had it in his
power to put an end to all this. He must purchase the right to continue,
and at Pierce's own price. But was the price so severe? After all, he
could contrive to do much; to carry on many of his causes; to help build
up a better and cleaner Worthington; to preserve a moiety of his power,
at the sacrifice of part of his independence; and at the same time his
paper would make money, be successful, take its place among the
recognized business enterprises of the town. As for the Rookeries
epidemic upon which all this turned, what did he really know of it,
anyway? Very likely it had been exaggerated. Probably it would die out
of itself. If lives were endangered, that was the common chance of a
slum.

Then, of a sudden, memory struck at his heart with the thrust of a more
vital, more personal, dread. For one day, wandering about in the
stricken territory, he had seen Esme Elliot entering a tenement doorway.

CHAPTER XXIV

A FAILURE IN TACTICS

Miss Eleanor Stanley Maxwell Elliot, home from her wanderings, stretched
her hammock and herself in it between two trees in a rose-sweet nook at
Greenvale, and gave herself up to a reckoning of assets and liabilities.
Decidedly the balance was on the wrong side. Miss Esme could not dodge
the unseemly conclusion that she was far from pleased with herself. This
was perhaps a salutary frame of mind, but not a pleasant one. If
possible, she was even less pleased with the world in which she lived.
And this was neither salutary nor pleasant. Furthermore, it was unique
in her experience. Hitherto she had been accustomed to a unive