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Sturdy Oak, The

<h2> CHAPTER X. BY ETHEL WATTS MUMFORD </h2> Penny, pacing the drawing-room with pantheresque strides, came to a tense halt as Remington entered. "Well?" he said, his eyes hard, his unwelcoming hands thrust deep into his pockets. That identical "well" with its uptilt of question had been on George's tongue. It was a monosyllable that demanded an answer. Penny had got ahead of him, forced him, as it were, into the witness chair, and he resented it. "Seems to me," he began hotly, "that you were the one who was going to make the statements—' whether or no,' I believe, we were to continue in partnership." "Perhaps," retorted Penny, with the air of allowing no great importance to that angle of the argument, "but what I want to know is, are you going to be a square man, and own up you were peeved into being a tyrant? And when you've done that, are you going to tell Betty, and apologize?" George hesitated, trapped between his irritation and the still small voice. "Look here," he said, with that amiable suavity that had won him many a concession, "you know well enough I don't want to hurt Betty's feelings. If she feels that way about it, of course I'll apologize." His partner looked at him in blank amazement. "Gad!" he exclaimed as if examining a particularly fine specimen of some rare beetle, "what a bounder." "Meaning me?" snapped George. "Don't dare to quibble. Look me in the eye." There was a third degree fatality about the usually debonair Penny that exacted obedience. George unwillingly looked him in the eye, and had a ghastly feeling of having his suddenly realized smallness X-rayed. "You know damned well you acted like a cad," Penny continued, "and I want to know, for all our sakes, if you're man enough to own it?" George's fundamental honesty mastered him. Anger died from his eyes. His clenched hands relaxed and began an unconscious and nervous exploration for a cigarette. "Since you put it that way," he said, "and it happens that my conscience agrees with you—I'll go you. I was a cad, and I'll tell Betty so. Confound it!" he growled, "I don't know what's come over me these days. I've got to get a grip on myself." "You bet you have," said Penny, hauling his fists from his trousers as if with an effort. Then he grinned. "Betty said you would." George's eyes darkened. "And I'll tell you now," Penny went on, "since you've turned out at least half-decent, Betty'll let you off that apology thing. She wasn't the one who was exacting it—not she. I couldn't stand for your highfalutin excuses for being—well, never mind—we all get our off days. But don't you get off again like that if——" Penny hesitated. "If you want me for a partner," which seemed the obvious conclusion, was tame. "If you want to hang on to any one's respect," he finished. "Say, though," he murmured, "Betty'll give me 'what for' for drubbing you. She actually took your side—said—oh, never mind—tried to make me think of her just as if she was any old Mamie—the stenog—tried to prune out personal feeling." "By Jove," he ruminated, "that girl's a corker!" He raised forgiving eyes from his contemplation of the rug. "Well, old man, blow me to a Scotch and soda, and I'll be going. Dinged if it wouldn't have broken me all up to have busted with you, even if you are a box of prunes. Shake." George shook, but he was far from happy. What he had gained in peace of mind he had lost in self-conceit. His resentment against the pinch of circumstance was deepening to cancerous vindictiveness. As Pennington left with a cheery good-by and a final half-cynical word of advice "to get onto himself" George mounted the stairs slowly and came face to face with Genevi�ve, obviously in wait for him. "What happened?" she inquired, with an anxious glance at his corrugated brow. George did not feel in a mood to describe his retreat, if not defeat. "Oh, nothing. We had a highball. I think I made him—well—it's all right." "There, I knew Betty'd make him see reason," she smiled. "I'm awfully glad. I've a real respect for Penny's judgment after all, you know." "Meaning, you have your doubts about mine." "No, meaning only just what I said—just that. By the way, George, I wish you'd take time to look into Alys' real estate. Somebody ought to, and if you're really representing her——" "Oh, good heavens!" he exclaimed impatiently, angered by her swift transition from his own to another's affairs. "I can't! I simply can't! Haven't you any conception of how busy I am?" "I know, dear; I do know. But something must be done. The Health Department," she explained, "has sent in complaint after complaint, and Miss Eliot simply won't handle the property unless she's allowed to spend a lot setting things to rights. Alys says it's absurd; none of the other property owners out there are doing anything, and she won't. So, nobody's looking after it, and somebody should." "Who told you all this?" he demanded. "Miss E. Eliot, I suppose." His wife nodded. "And she's right," she added. "Well, perhaps she is," he allowed. "I'll get Alien to act as her agent again. He's in with all the politicians; he ought to be able to stall off the department." The words slipped out before he realized their import, but at Genevieve's wide stare of amazement he flushed crimson. "I mean—lots of these complaints are really mere red tape; some self-important employee is trying to look busy. A little investigation usually puts that straight." "Of course," she acquiesced, and he breathed a sigh of relief. "That happens, too, but Miss Eliot says that the conditions out there are really dreadful." "I'll talk to Allen," said George with an affectation of easy dismissal of the subject. But Genevieve's mind appeared to have grown suddenly persistent. At dinner she again brought up the subject, this time directing her troubled gaze and troubling words at her guest. "Alys," she said abruptly, "I really think you ought to go out to Kentwood—to see about your property out there, I mean." Mrs. Brewster-Smith looked up, rolling her large eyes in frank amazement. "Go out there? What for? It isn't the sort of a district a lady cares to be seen in, I'm told; and, besides, George is looking after that for me. He understands such matters, and I frankly own I don't. Business makes me quite dizzy," she added with a flash of very white teeth. Genevi�ve hesitated, then went to the point. "But you must advise with your agent, Alys. The property is yours." Alys raised sharply penciled brows. "I have utter confidence in George," she answered in a tone of finality that brought an adoring look from Emelene, and her usual Boswellian echo: "Of course." George squirmed uneasily. Such a vote of confidence implied accepted responsibility, and he acknowledged to himself that he wanted to and would dodge the unwelcome burden. He turned a benign Jovian expression on Mrs. Brewster-Smith and condescended to explain. "I have considered what is best for you, and I will myself see Allen and request him to take your real-estate affairs in charge again. Neither Sampson nor—er—Eliot is, I think, advisable for your best interests." At the mention of the last name Genevieve's expressive face stretched to speak; then she closed her lips with self-controlled determination. Mrs. Brewster-Smith looked at her host in scandalized amazement. "But I told you," she almost whimpered, "that his wife is simply impossible." George smiled tolerantly. "But his wife isn't doing the business. It's the business, not the social interests, we have to consider. "Oh, but she is in the business," Alys explained. "I think it's because she's jealous of him; she wants to be around the office and watch him." Genevi�ve interposed. "Mrs. Allen owns a lot of land herself, and she looks after it. It seems quite natural to me." "But she has a husband," Alys rebuked. "Yes," agreed Genevi�ve, "but she probably married him for a husband, not a business agent." George felt the reins of the situation slipping from him, so he jerked the curb of conversation. "We are beside the issue," he said in his most legal manner. "The fact is that Allen knows more about the Kentwood district and the factory values than any one else, and I feel it my duty to advise Alys to leave her affairs in his hands. I'll see him for you in the morning." He turned to Alys with a return of tolerantly protective inflection in his voice. Genevi�ve shrugged, a faint ghost of a shrug. Had George been less absorbed in his own mental discomforts, he would have discovered there and then that the matter of his speech, not the manner of his delivery, was what held his wife's attention. No longer could rounded periods and eloquent sophistry hide from her his thoughts and intentions. A telephone call interrupted the meal. He answered it with relief, bowing a hurried, self-important excuse to the ladies. But the voice that came over the wire was not modulated in tones of flattery. "Say," drawled the campaign manager, "you'd better get a hump on, and come over here to headquarters. There's a couple of gents here who want a word with you." The tone was ominous, and George stiffened. "Very well, I'll be right over. But you can pretty well tell them where I stand on the main issues. Who's at headquarters?" A snort of disgust greeted the inquiry. The snort told George that seasoned campaigners did not use the telephone with such casual lack of circumspection. The words were in like manner enlightening. "Well, there might be Mr. Julius Caesar, and then again Mr. George Washington might drop in. What I'm putting you wise to," he added sharply, "is that you'd better get on to your job." There was a click as of a receiver hung up with a jerk, and a subdued giggle that testified to the innocent attention of the telephone operator. With but a pale reflection of his usual courtesy the harassed candidate left the bosom of his family. No sooner had he taken his departure than the bosom heaved. "My dear girl," said Alys, "if you take that tone with your husband you'll never hold him—never. Men won't stand for it. You're only hurting yourself." "What tone?" Genevieve inquired as she rose calmly and led the way to the drawing-room. "I mean"—Mrs. Brewster-Smith slipped a firm, white hand across Genevieve's shoulders—"you shouldn't try to force issues. It looks as if you didn't have confidence in your husband, and men, to do and be their best, must feel perfect trust from the woman they love. You don't mind my being so frank, dear, but we women must help one another—by our experience and our intuitions." Genevi�ve looked at her. Oblique angles had become irritatingly fascinating. "I'm beginning to think so more and more," she replied. "It's for your own good, dear," Alys smiled. "Yes," Genevi�ve agreed. "I understand. Things that hurt are often for our good, aren't they? We have to be made to realize facts really to know them." "Coffee, dear?" inquired Alys, assuming the duties of hostess. Genevi�ve shook her head. "No. I find I've been rather wakeful of late: perhaps it's coffee. Excuse me. I must telephone." A moment later she returned beaming. "I have borrowed a car for tomorrow, and I want you and Emelene to come with me for a little spin. We ought to have a bright day; the night is wonderful. Poor George," she sighed, "I wish he didn't have to be away so much." "His career is yours, you know," kittenishly bromidic, Emelene comforted her. The following day fulfilled the promise of its predecessor. Clear and balmy, it invited to the outer, world, and it was with pleased anticipation that Genevieve's guests prepared for the promised outing. Genevi�ve glanced anxiously into her gold mesh bag. The motor was hired, not borrowed. She had permitted herself this one white lie. She ushered her guests into the tonneau and took her place beside the chauffeur. Their first few stops were for such prosaic purchases as the household made necessary; there was a pause at the post office, another at the Forum, where Genevi�ve left two highly disgruntled women waiting for her while with a guilty sense of teasing her prey she prolonged her business. The sight of their stiffened figures and averted faces when she returned to them kindled a new amusement. At last they were settled comfortably, and the car turned toward the suburbs. The town streets were passed and lines of villa homes thinned. The ornate colonial gates of the Country Club flashed by. Now the sky to the right was dark with the smoke of the belching chimneys of many factories. For a block or two cottages of the better sort flanked the road; then, grim, ugly and dilapidated, stretched the twin "improved" sections of Kentwood and Powderville. In the air was an acrid odor. Soot begrimed everything. The sodden ground was littered with refuse between the shacks, which were dignified by the title of "Workmen's Cottages." Amid the confusion, irregular trodden paths led, short-cutting, toward the clattering, grinding munition plants. For a space of at least half an acre around the huge iron buildings the ground, with sinister import, was kept clear of dwellings, but in all directions outside of the inclosure thousands of new yellow-pine shacks testified to the sudden demand for labor. A large weather-beaten signboard at a wired cross-road bore the name of "Kentwood," plus the advice that the office was adjacent for the purchase or lease of the highly desirable villa sites. The motor drew up and Genevieve alighted. For the first time since their course had been turned toward the unlovely but productive outskirts, Genevi�ve faced her passengers. Alys' face was pale. Emelene's expression was puzzled and worried, as a child's is worried when the child is suddenly confronted by strange and gloomy surroundings. "There is some one in the renting office," said Genevi�ve with quiet determination. "I'll find out. We shall need a guide to go around with us. Emelene, you needn't get out unless you wish to." Emelene shuffled uneasily, half rose, and collapsed helplessly back on the cushions, like a baby who has encountered the resistance of his buggy strap. "I—if you'll excuse me, Genevi�ve, dear, I won't get out. I've only got on my thin kid slippers. I didn't expect to put foot on the pavement this morning, you know." "Very well, then, Alys!" Genevieve's voice assumed a note of command her mild accents had never before known. Alys' brilliant eyes snapped. "I have no desire," she said firmly, with all the dignity of an affronted lady, "to go into this matter." "I know you haven't. But I'm going to walk through. I am making a report for the Woman's Forum." Alys' face crimsoned with anger. "You have no right to do such a thing," she exclaimed. "I shall refuse you permission. You will have to obtain a permit." "I have one," Genevi�ve retorted, "from the Health Department. And—I am to meet one of the officers here." Mrs. Brewster-Smith's descent from the tonneau was more rapid than graceful. "What are you trying to do?" she demanded. "Genevi�ve, I don't understand you." "Don't you?" The diffident girl had suddenly assumed the incisive strength of observant womanhood. "I think you do. I am going to show you your own responsibilities, if that's a possible thing. I'm not going to let you throw them on George because he's a man and your kin; and I shan't let him throw them on an irresponsible agent because he has neither the time nor the inclination to do justice to himself, to you, nor to these people to whom he is responsible." She waved a hand down the muddy, jumbled street. The advent of an automobile had had its effect. Eager faces appeared at windows and doors. Children frankly curious and as frankly neglected climbed over each other, hanging on the ragged fences. Two mongrel dogs strained at their chains, yelping furiously. Genevi�ve crossed to the little square building bearing a gilt "office" sign. There was no response to her imperative knock, but a middle-aged man appeared on the porch of the adjoining shack and observed her curiously. "Wanta rent?" he called j�eringly. "Are you in charge here?" Genevi�ve inquired. "Sorter," he temporized. "Watcha want?" "I want some one who knows something about it to go around Kentwood with us." "What for?" he snarled. "I got my orders." "From whom?" countered Genevi�ve. "None of your business, as I can see." He eyed her narrowly. "But my orders is to keep every one nosin' around here without no good raison out of the place—and I don't think you're here to rent, nor your friend, neither. Besides, there ain't nothin' to rent." Mrs. Brewster-Smith colored. The insult to her ownership of the premises stung her to resentment. "My good man," she said sharply. "I happen to be the proprietor of North Kent wood." "Then you'd better beat it." The guardian grinned. "There's a dame been here with one of them fellers from the town office." "Where are they now?" questioned Genevieve sharply. "Went up factory way. But if you ain't one of them lady nosies, you'd better beat it, I tell you." Genevieve looked up the street. "Very well, we'll walk on up. This is North Kentwood, isn't it?" "Ain't much choice," he shrugged, "but it is. You can smell it a mile. Say, you lady owner there"—he laughed at his own astuteness in not being taken in—"you know the monikers, don't you? South Kentwood, 'Stinktown'; North Kentwood, 'Swilltown'?" He grinned, pulled at his hip pocket and, extracting a flat glass flask, took a prolonged swig and replaced the bottle with a leer. The two incongruous visitors were already negotiating the muddy thoroughfare between the dilapidated dwellings. Presently these gave place to roughly knocked together structures for two and three families. The number of children was surprising. Now and again a shrill-voiced woman, who seemed the prototype of her who lived in the shoe, came to admonish her young and stare with hostile eyes at the invaders. Refuse, barrels, cans, pigs, dogs, chickens, were on all sides, with here and there a street watering trough, fed, apparently, by an occasional tap at the wide-apart hydrants, installed by the factories for protection in case of fire, as evidenced by the signs staked by the apparatus. "What do they pay you for these cottages?" Genevi�ve inquired suddenly. Mrs. Brewster-Smith, whose curiosity concerning her possessions had been aroused by the physical evidence of the same, balanced on a rut and surveyed her tormentor angrily. "I'm sure I don't know. I've told you before I don't understand such matters, and I see nothing to be gained by coming here." Genevi�ve pushed open a battered gate, walked up to the door and knocked. "What are you doing?" her companion called, querulously. A noise of many pattering feet on bare floors, a strident order for silence, and the door swung open. A young girl stood in the doorway. Behind her were a dozen or more children, varying from toddlers to gawky girls and boys of school age. Genevieve's eyes widened. "Dear me," she exclaimed, "they aren't all yours!" The young woman grinned mirthlessly. "I should say not!" she snapped. "They pays me to look out for 'em—their fathers and mothers in the factory. Watcha want?" "What do you pay for a house like this?" The hired mother's brow wrinkled, and her lips drew back in an ugly snarl. "They robs us, these landlords does. We gotter be 'longside the works, so they robs us. What do I pay for this? Thirty a month, and at that 'tain't fit for no dawg to live in. I could knock up a shack like this with tar paper, I could. "And what do we get? I gotter haul the water in a bucket, and cook on an oil stove, and they hists the price of the ile, 'cause he comes by in a wagon with it. The landlords is squeezing the life out of us, I tell ye." She paused in her tirade to yell at her charges. Then she turned again to the story of her wrongs. "And of all the pest holes I ever seen, this is the plum worst. There's chills an' fever an' typhoid till you can't rest, an' them kids is abustin' with measles an' mumps an' scarlet fever. That I ain't got 'em all myself's a miracle." "You ought to have a district nurse and inspector/' said Genevi�ve, amused, in spite of her indignation, at the dark picture presented. "Distric' nothin'," the other sneered. "There ain't nothin' here but rent an' taxes—doggone if I don't quit. There's plenty to do this here mindin' work, an' I bet I could make more at the factory. They're payin' grand for overtime." Genevi�ve looked at the thin shoulders and narrow chest of the girl, noted her growing pallor and wondered how long such a physique could withstand the strain of hard work and overtime. She sighed. Something of her thoughts must have shown in her face, for the girl reddened and her lips tightened. Without another word she slammed the door in her visitor's face. Mrs. Brewster-Smith cackled thin laughter. "That's what you get for interfering," she jeered, so angry with her hostess for this forced inspection of her source of income that she was ready to sacrifice the comforts of her extended visit to have the satisfaction of airing her resentment. "Poor soul!" said Genevi�ve. "Thirty a month!" Her eyes ran over the rows of crowded shacks. "The owners must get together and do something here," she said. "These conditions are simply vile." "It's probably all these people are used to," Alys snapped, "And, besides, if they went further into town it'd cost them the trolley both ways, and all the time lost. It's the location they pay for. Mr. Alien told me not two months ago he thought rents could be raised." "If you all co-operate," Genevieve continued her own line of thought, "you could at least clean the place and make it safe to live in, even if they haven't any comforts." Her face brightened. Around the corner came the strong, solid figure of Miss Eliot; behind her trotted a bespectacled young man who carried a pigskin envelope under his arm and whose expression was far from happy. "Hello!" called Miss Eliot. "So you did come. I'm glad of it. Let me present Mr. Glass to you. The department lent him to me for the day. And what do you think of it, now that you can see it?" "Glad to meet you," said Genevieve, nodding to the health officer. "What do I think of it? What does Mr. Glass think? That's more important. Oh, let me present you—this is Mrs. Brewster-Smith." Miss Eliot's face showed no surprise, though her eyes twinkled, but Mr. Glass was frankly taken aback. "Mrs. Brewster—Smith——Brewster—Smith," he stammered. "Oh—er—" he gripped his pigskin folio as if about to search its contents to verify the name. "The—er—the owner?" he inquired. Alys stiffened. "My dear husband left me this property. I have never before seen it." "I'm very glad," beamed Mr. Glass, "to see that we shall have your co-operation in our efforts to do something definite for this section—and measures must be taken quickly. As you see, there is no sanitation, no trenching, no mosquito-extermination plant. Malaria and typhoid are prevalent; it's all very bad, very bad, indeed. And you'd hardly believe, Mrs. Brewster-Smith, what difficulties we are having with the owners as a class. The five biggest have formed an association. I suppose you've heard about it. They must have made an effort to interest you "—he stopped short, remembering that her name appeared on the lists of the "Protective League." "Really"—Alys had recovered her hauteur and the aloofness becoming the situation—"I know nothing whatever about what measures my agents have thought it advisable to take." Mr. Glass choked and glanced uneasily at Miss Eliot. That lady grinned, almost the grin of a gamin. "You needn't look at me, Mr. Glass. I don't represent Mrs. Brewster-Smith." "Oh, I know, I know," Mr. Glass hastened to exonerate his companion. "I believe Miss Eliot declined the honor," Genevieve's voice was heard. "I did," the agent affirmed. She laughed shortly. "Otherwise you would hardly find me here in my present capacity. One does not 'run with the hare and hunt with the hounds,' you know." Alys lost her temper. It seemed to her she was ruthlessly being forced to shoulder responsibilities she had been taught to shirk as a sacred feminine right. Therefore, feeling injured, she voiced her innocence. "Your husband, my dear Genevi�ve, has been good enough to administer my little estate. Whatever he has done, or now plans to do, meets with my entire approval." The thrust went home in more directions than one. Miss Eliot turned her frank gaze upon the speaker, while she slowly nodded her head as if studying a perfect specimen of a noxious species. Mr. Glass gasped. There was political material in the statement. He looked anxiously at the wife of the gentleman implicated, but in her was no fear and no manner of trembling. Instead, the light of battle shone in her eyes. "My dear Alys," she said, "my husband has told you that he is too busy a man to give your affairs his personal attention. He can only advise you and turn the executive side over to another. His experience does not extend to the stock market or to real estate. It is an imposition to throw your burdens upon him. If you derive benefits from ownership, you must educate yourself to accept your duty to society." "Indeed!" flared Alys, furious at this public arraignment. "May I ask if you intend to continue this insulting attitude?" "If you mean, do I expect hereafter to be a live woman and not a parasite—I do." Mrs. Brewster-Smith turned on her heel and walked away, teetering over the ruts and holes of the path. Genevieve looked distressed. "I'm sorry," she breathed, "I'm ashamed, but it had to come out. I—I couldn't stand it any longer. I—beg everybody's pardon. I'm sure, it was awfully bad manners of me. Oh, dear—" she faltered, half turned, and, with a gesture of appeal toward Mrs. Brewster-Smith's slowly retreating back, moved as if to follow. "I wouldn't go after her," said E. Eliot. "Of course, you haven't had experience. You don't know how much self-restraint you've got to build up, but you're here now, and I'm sure Mr. Glass understands. He's got to come up against all sorts of exasperations on his job, too. He won't take any stock in Mrs. Brewster-Smith's trying to tie your husband up to these wretched conditions. "He's looking forward to seeing an honest, public-spirited district attorney get into office—even if your husband doesn't yet see that women have anything to say about it. They may heckle him in order to force him to come out on his intentions about the graft, and the eight-hour day, and the enforcement of the law, but they don't doubt his honesty. When he know's what's what, I guess the public can trust him to do the right thing. Only he's got to be shown." As she talked, giving Genevi�ve time to recover from her upheaval, the three investigators were plowing their way up and down byways equally depressing and insanitary. Silence ensued. Occasionally an expression of commiseration or condemnation escaped one or another of the party. Suddenly a raucous whistle tore the air, followed by another and another, declaring the armistice of the noon hour. Iron gates in the surrounding wall were opened, a stream of men and women poured out, grimed, sweat-streaked and voluble. The two women and their escort paused and watched the oncoming swarm of humanity. Around the corner, just ahead, strode a giant of a man, followed by a red-faced, unkempt, familiar figure—the man in charge of the renting office. The giant came forward threateningly. "What youse doing?" he growled. He jerked his jersey, displaying a brass badge, P. A. Guard. "Git outer here—git," he called. Mr. Glass stepped forward, displaying his Health Department permit. The giant laughed. "Say, sonny," he sneered, "that don't go—see. Them tin fakes don't git by. If you're one of them guys, you come here wit' McLaughlin, and youse can rubber. But we've had enough of this stuff. Them dames is no blind, neither. I'm guard for the owners here, and we ain't takin' no chances wit' trouble makers—git. Git a move on!" "The department," spluttered Glass, "shall hear of this." "That's all right. McLaughlin's the boss. Tell 'em not to send a kid to do a man's job." Genevi�ve was too amazed to protest. It was her first experience of defiance of Law and Order by Law and Order. Meanwhile, the first stragglers of the released army of toilers were nearly upon them. The giant observed their approach, and the look of menace deepened on his huge, congested face. "Move on, now—move on," he snarled, and herded them forward in advance of the workers. Sheepishly the three obeyed, but Miss Eliot was not silent. "Your name?" she demanded in judicial command. The very terseness of her question seemed to jerk an unwilling answer from the guard. "Michael Mehan." "And you're employed by the Owners' Protective League?" "Sure." "Have they given you orders to keep strangers out of the district?" "I have me orders, and I know what they be. I'm duly sworn in as extra guard—and I'm not the only one, neither." "Did he come after you?" Miss Eliot indicated the ruffian at his side. "I seen the lady owner blew the bunch," that worthy remarked with a hoarse chuckle. "I wised Mike, all right. Whatcha goin' to do about it?" "Mrs. Brewster-Smith, the owner," Miss Eliot observed, "didn't seem to know that she had employed you. How about that?" "I'm put here by the O.P.L. That's good enough fer yer lady owner—now—ain't it? The things them nosey dames thinks they can git by wit'!" he observed to the guard, and swore an oath that made Mr. Glass turn to him with unexpected fury. "You may pretend to think that I'm not what I represent myself to be, but let me tell you, McLaughlin is going to hear of this. One more insult to these ladies and I'll make it my business to go personally to your employers. Get me?" "Shut your trap, Jim," snarled Mehan. "Yer ain't got no orders fer no fancy language." He leered at Genevi�ve. "Now we've shooed the chickens out, we're tru'." With a wave of his huge paw he indicated the highway the turn of the path revealed. Genevi�ve looked to the right, where the car should be waiting her. It was gone. Evidently the indignant Mrs. Brewster-Smith had expedited the departure. Miss Eliot read her discomfiture. "My car is right down here behind that palatial mansion with the hole in the roof and the tin-can extension. Thank you very much for your escort," she added, turning to the two representatives of the Protective League. "My name, by the way, is E. Eliot. I am a real-estate agent and my office is at 22 Braston Street. You might mention it in your report." The little car stood waiting, surrounded by a group of admiring children. Its owner stepped in briskly, backed around and received her passengers. "Well," she smiled as they drew out on the traveled highway, "how do you like the purlieus of our noble little city?" Genevieve was silent. Then she spoke with conviction. "When George is in power—and he's got to be—the Law will be the Law. I know him." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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