“You’re all wrong,” he told Joe when he left, “and some day possibly we’ll hang you or electrocute you; but it’s refreshing to rub one’s mind against a going dynamo.  I’m coming again.  And don’t forget that your mother is the First Lady of the Island!  Good-by!”

Then there was, one important day, the great ex-trust man, whose name is inscribed on granite buildings over half the earth.  This man—­so the legend runs—­is on the lookout for unusual personalities.  The first hint of a new one puts him on the trail, and he sends out a detective to gather facts, all of which are card-indexed under the personality’s name.  Then, if the report is attractive, this man goes out himself and meets the oddity face to face.  He came in on Joe jovial, happy, sparkling, and fired a broadside of well-chosen questions.  Joe was delighted, and said anything he pleased, and his visitor shrewdly went on.  In the end Joe was stunned to hear this comment: 

“Mr. Blaine, you’re on the right track, though you don’t know it.  You think you want one thing, but you’re after another.  Still—­keep it up.  The world is coming to wonderful things.”

“That’s queer talk,” said Joe, “coming from a multimillionaire.”

The multimillionaire laughed.

“But I’m getting rid of the multi, Mr. Blaine.  What more would you have me do?  Each his own way.  Besides”—­he screwed up his eye shrewdly—­“come now, aren’t you hanging on to some capital?”

“Yes—­in a way!”

“So are we all!  You’re a wise man!  Keep free, and then you can help others!”

The most interesting caller, however, judged from the standpoint of Joe’s life, was Theodore Marrin, Izon’s boss, manufacturer of high-class shirtwaists, whose Fifth Avenue store is one of the most luxurious in New York.  He came to Joe while the great cloak-makers’ strike was still on, at a time when families were reduced almost to starvation, and when the cause seemed quite hopeless.

Theodore Marrin came in a beautiful heavy automobile.  He was a short man, with a stout stomach; his face was a deep red, with large, slightly bulging black eyes, tiny mustache over his full lips; and he was dressed immaculately and in good taste—­a sort of Parisian-New Yorker, hail-fellow-well-met, a mixer, a cynic, a man about town.  He swung his cane lightly as he tripped up the steps, sniffed the air, and knocked on the door of the editorial office.

Billy opened.

“Yes, sir.”

“Mr. Blaine in?”

“He’s busy.”

“I should hope he was!  There, my boy.”  He deftly waved Billy aside and stepped in.  “Well! well!  Mr. Blaine!”

Joe turned about, and arose, and accepted Mr. Marrin’s extended hand.

“Who do you think I am?”

Joe smiled.

“I’m ready for anything.”

“Well, Mr. Blaine, I’m the employer of one of your men.  You know Jacob Izon?”

“Oh, you’re Mr. Marrin!  Sit down.”