known. If ever a man was born for friendship he was the man—a kindly but strong face, genial blue eyes, and the love of good fellowship. But he had few friends and no intimates beyond his family circle. True, he had a gruff voice and a broken nose, and was not much of a talker. Of Norris, the financier, many knew more or less; of Norris, the man, he and his family seemed to enjoy a monopoly of information. It was not quite a monopoly, however, as I discovered when I began to observe the deep undercurrents of his life. Right away he asked me to look at them.

Norris had written that he wished to consult me, and was forbidden by his doctor to go far from his country house, where he was trying to rest. Years before he had put a detail of business in my hands, and I had had some luck with it.

His glowing wife and daughter met me at the railroad-station with a glowing footman and a great, glowing limousine. The wife was a restored masterpiece of the time of Andrew Johnson—by which I mean that she was a very handsome woman, whose age varied from thirty to fifty-five, according to the day and the condition of your eyesight. She trained more or less in fashionable society, and even coughed with an English accent. The daughter was a lovely blonde, blue-eyed girl of twenty. She was tall and substantial—built for all weather and especially well-roofed—a real human being, with sense enough to laugh at my jokes and other serious details in her environment.

We arrived at the big, plain, comfortable house just in time for luncheon. Norris met me at the door. He looked pale and careworn, but greeted me playfully, and I remarked that he seemed to be feeling his oats.

"Feeling my oats! Well, I should say so," he answered. "No man's oats ever filled him with deeper feeling."

Like so many American business men, his brain had all feet in the trough, so to speak, and was getting more than its share of blood, while the other vital organs in his system were probably only half fed.

At the table I met Richard Forbes, a handsome, husky young man who seemed to take a special interest in Miss Gwendolyn, the daughter. There were also the aged mother of Norris, two maiden cousins of his—jolly women between forty-five and fifty years of age—a college president, and Mrs. Mushtop, a proud and talkative lady who explained to me that she was one of the Mushtops of Maryland. Of course you have met those interesting people. Ever since 1627 the Mushtops have been coming over from England with the first Lord Baltimore, and now they are quite numerous. While we ate, Norris said little, but seemed to enjoy the jests and stories better than the food.

He had a great liking for good tobacco, and after luncheon showed me the room where he kept his cigars. There were thousands of them made from the best crops of Cuba, in sizes to suit the taste.

"Here are some from the crop of '93," he said, as he opened a box. "I have green cigars, if you prefer them, but I never smoke a cigar unless it crackles."

I took a crackler, and with its delicious aroma under my nose we went for a walk in the villa gardens. Some one had released a dozen Airedales, of whom my host was extremely fond, and they followed at his heels. I walked with the maiden cousins, one of whom said of Norris: "We're very fond of him. Often we sing, 'What a friend we have in Whitfield!' and it amuses him very much."

And it suggested to me that they had good reason to sing it.

Norris was extremely fond of beautiful things, and his knowledge of both art and flowers was unusual. He showed us the conservatories and his art-gallery filled with masterpieces, but very calmly and with no flourish.

"I've only a few landscapes here," he said, "things that do not seem to quarrel with the hills and valleys."

"Or the hay and whiskers and the restful spirit beneath them," I suggested.

I knew that he had bought in every market of the world, and had given some of his best treasures to sundry museums of art in America, but they were always credited to "a friend," and never to Whitfield Norris.

On our return to the house he asked me to ride with him, and we got into the big car and went out for a leisurely trip on the country roads. The farmer-folk in field and dooryard waved their hands and stirred their whiskers as we passed.

"They're all my friends," he said.

"Tenants and vassals!" I remarked.

"You see, I've helped some of them in a small way, but always impersonally," he answered, as if he had not heard me. "I have sought to avoid drawing their attention to me in any way whatever."

We drew up at a little house on a lonely road to ask our way. An Irish woman came to the car door as we stopped, and said:

"God bless ye, sor! It does me eyes good to look an' see ye better—thanks to the good God! I haven't forgot yer kindness."

"But I have," said Norris.

The woman was on her mental knees before him as she stood looking into his face.

No doubt he had lifted her mortgage or favored her in some like manner. Her greeting seemed to please him, and he gave her a kindly word, and told his driver to go on.

We passed the Mary Perkins's school and the Mary Perkins's hospital, both named for his wife. I had heard much of these model charities, but not from him. So many rich men talk of their good deeds, like the lecturer in a side-show, but he held his peace. Everywhere I could not help seeing that he was regarded as a kind of savior, and he seemed to regret it. Was he a great actor or—?

"It's a pity that I cannot enjoy my life like other men," he interrupted, as this thought came to me. "None of my neighbors are quite themselves when they talk to me; they think I must be praised and flattered. They don't talk to me in a reliable fashion, as you do. You have noticed that even my own family is given to songs of praise in my presence."

"Norris, I'm sorry for you," I said. "They say that you inherited a fair amount of poverty—honest, hard-earned poverty. Why didn't you take care of it? Why did you get reckless and squander it in commercial dissipation? You should have kept enough to give your daughter a proper start in life. I have taken care of mine."

"It began in the thoughtless imprudence of youth," he went on, playfully. "I used to think that money was an asset."

"And you have discovered that money is only a jackasset."

"That it is, in fact, a liability, and that every man you meet is dunning you for a part of it."

"Including the lawyers you meet," I said. "Oh, they're the worst of all!" he laughed. "As distributors of the world's poverty they are unrivaled."

He smiled and shook his head with a look of amusement and injury as he went on.

"Almost every one who comes near me has a hatchet if not an ax to grind. I am sick of being a little tin god. I seem to be standing in a high place where I can see all the selfishness of the world about me. No, it hasn't made me a cynic. I have some sympathy for the most transparent of them; but generally I am rather gruff and ill-natured; often I lose my temper. I have had enough of praise and flattery to understand how weary of it the Almighty must be. He must see how cheap it is, and if He has humor, as of course He has, having given so much of it to His children, how He must laugh at some of the gross adulation that is offered Him! But let us get to business.

"I invited you here to engage your services in a most important matter; it's so important that for many years I have given it my own attention. But my health is failing, and I must get rid of this problem, which is, in a way, like the riddle of the Sphinx. Some other fellow must tackle it, and I've chosen you for the job. Mr. Potter, you are to be, if you will, my trustiest friend as well as my attorney. For many years I have been the victim of blackmailers, and have paid them a lot of money."

"Poverty is a good thing, but not if it's achieved through the aid of a blackmailer," I remarked. "Try some other