hospital with Bright's disease. They're both of them broke, and you know as well as I that they could get this money in an hour from some newspaper. It's almost dead sure that both of these men will be out of the way in a year or so. Norris wants to be protected, and it's up to you and me to do it."

"Personally I do not see the object," I insisted. "Protecting him from one assault only exposes him to another."

"You see, the daughter isn't married yet, and we'd better protect the name until she's out of the way, anyhow. That girl can go to Europe and take her pick. She's good enough for any title. But if this came out it would hurt her chances."

"Mr. Wilton, I congratulate you," was my remark.

"I thought you would see the point," he answered, with a smile.

"I am thinking not of the point, but of your philanthropy. It is beautiful. Do you sleep well nights?"

"Very," he answered, with a quick glance into my eyes.

"I should think that the troubles of the world would keep you awake."

His face flushed a little, and then he smiled. "You lawyers have no suspicion of the amount of goodness there is in the world—you're always looking for rascals," he said.

"But we have wandered. Let us take the nearest road to Rome. You say they must have money to-day."

"Before three o'clock."

"We'll give them ten thousand dollars—not a cent more. You must tell them to use it gently, for it's the last they'll get from us. To whom shall I draw the check?"

"To me—Lysander Wilton," he answered, with a look of relief.

I gave him the check. He put on his coat and began to purr again; he was glad to know me, and rightly thought that he could turn some business my way.

As he left my office I went to one of the front windows and took out my handkerchief. The fog-whistle blew a blast that swept sea and land with its echoes. In a moment I saw a certain clever, keen-eyed man who was studying current history under the direction of Prof. William J. Bums come out of a door opposite and walk at a leisurely pace down the main street of Pointview toward the station. He was now taking the first steps in a systematic effort to see what was in and behind the man Wilton.

III.—IN WHICH A MAN IS SEEN HOLDING DOWN THE BUSHEL THAT HIDES HIS LIGHT

THE first thing I desired was the history of Wilton. He knew more about us than we knew about him, and that didn't seem to be fair or even necessary. In fact, I felt sure that his little world would yield valuable knowledge if properly explored. I knew that there were lions and tigers in it.

I learned that Wilton had proceeded forthwith to a certain apartment house on the upper west side of New York, in which he remained until dinner-time, when he came out with a well-dressed woman and drove in a cab to Martin's. The two spent a careless night, which ended at four a.m. in a gambling-house, where Wilton had lost nine hundred dollars. Next day, about noon, his well-dressed woman friend came out of the house and was trailed to a bank, where she cashed a check for five hundred dollars. We learned there that this woman was an actress and that her balance was about eighty-five hundred dollars.

Three months passed, and I got no further news of the man, save that he had gone to Chicago and that our trailers had gone with him.

"Our Western office now has the matter in hand," so the agency wrote me. "They are doing their work with extreme care. Fresh men took up the trail every day, until one of our ablest became a trusted confidant of Wilton."

The whole matter rested in the files of my office, and I had not thought of it until one day Norris sent for me and, on my arrival at his house, showed me a telegram. It was from the President of the United States, whose career he had assisted in one way and another. It offered him the post of Minister to a European court. The place was one of the great prizes.

"Of course you will accept it?" I said.

"I should like to," he answered, "but isn't it curious that fame is one of the things which fate denies me. I wouldn't dare take it."

I understood him and said nothing.

"You see, I cannot be a big man. I must keep myself as little as possible."

"The joys of littleness are very great, as the mouse remarked at the battle of Gettysburg; but they are not for you," I said. "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted."

"He that humbleth himself shall avoid trouble—that's the way it hits me," he said. "I could have been Secretary of the Treasury a few years back if I had dared. I must let everything alone which is likely to stir up my history. Suppose the President should suddenly discover that he had an ex-convict in his Cabinet? Do you think he could stand that, great as he is? He would rightly say that I had tricked and deceived and disgraced him. What would the newspapers say, and what would people think of me? Potter, I've made a study of this thing we call civilization. It's a big thing—I do not underestimate it—but it isn't big enough to forgive a man who has served his term."

"Yes, I know; some of us are always looking for a thief inside the honest man," was my answer. "We ought to be looking for the honest man inside the thief, as Chesterton puts it."

"That's a good idea!" he exclaimed. "Find me one. I'd like to use him to teach this world a lesson. I'd pay you a handsome salary as Diogenes. If you succeed once I'll astonish you with generosity."

"I should like to help you to get rid of some of this money of yours," I said.

"You can begin this morning," he went on. "I'm going to give you some notes for a new will. Suppose you sit down at the table there."

I spent the rest of that day taking notes, and was astonished at the amount of his property and the breadth of his spirit. He had got his start in the mining business, and with surprising insight had invested his earnings in real estate, oil-lands, railroad stocks, and steel-mills.

"I have always believed in America, and America has made me rich," he said to me.

"Before the Spanish War and in every panic, when no man seemed to want her securities, I have bought them freely, and I own them today. With our growing trade and fruitful lands I wonder that all thinking men did not share my confidence. If America had gone to smash I should have gone with her. I shall stick to the old ship."

One paragraph of the will has begun to make history. It has appeared in the newspapers, but no account of my friend should omit it, and therefore I present its wording here:

"There are many points of greatness in the Christian faith, but the greatest of all is charity. I conceive that the best argument for the heathen is that of wheat and com. I therefore direct that the sum of five million dollars be set aside and invested by the trustees of this will and that its proceeds be applied to the relief of the distressing poverty of unconverted peoples, wherever they may be, in the discretion of said trustees; and when said relief is applied it shall be done as the act of 'A Christian friend in America.' It is my wish that wherever practicable in the judgment of said trustees this relief shall be applied through the establishment of industries in which the needy shall be employed at fair wages."

I had finished my notes for the will, and my friend and I were sitting comfortably by the open fire, when his wife entered the room and sat down with us.

"Have you told Mr. Potter about the bank offer?" she inquired of her husband.

"No, my dear," he answered.

"May I tell him?"

"Certainly."

"Mr. Potter, the presidency of a great bank has been offered to my husband, and I think that he ought to take it."

"Oh, I have work enough here at home—all I can do," he said.

"But you will not have much to do there—only a little