“I—­my—­what!”

“Certainly.  Some shirk taxes, some jury duty. You shirk fatherhood, and all its happy and sacred obligations!  You deny posterity!  You strike a blow at it!  You flout it!  You menace the future of this Republic!  Your inertia is a crime against the people!  Instead of pro bono publico your motto is pro bono tempo—­for a good time!  And, dog Latin or not, it’s the truth, and our great President”

“Splash!” said Kerns, rising.

“I’ve a good mind,” said Gatewood indignantly, “to put the Tracer of Lost Persons on your trail.  He’d rope you and tie you in record time!”

Kerns’s smile was a provocation.

“I’ll do it, too!” added Gatewood, losing his temper, “if you dare give me the chance.”

“Seriously,” inquired Kerns, delighted, “do you think your friend, Mr. Keen, could encompass my matrimony against my better sense and the full enjoyment of my unimpaired mental faculties?”

“Didn’t he—­fortunately for me—­force me into matrimony when I had never seen a woman I would look at twice?  Didn’t you put him up to it?  Very well, why can’t I put him on your trail then?  Why can’t he do the same for you?”

“Try it, dear friend,” retorted Kerns courteously.

“Do you mean that you are not afraid?  Do you mean you give me full liberty to set him on you?  And do you realize what that means?  No, you don’t; for you haven’t a notion of what that man, Westrel Keen, can accomplish.  You haven’t the slightest idea of the machinery which he controls with a delicacy absolutely faultless; with a perfectly terrifying precision.  Why, man, the Pinkerton system itself has become merely a detail in the immense complexity of the system of control which the Tracer of Lost Persons exercises over this entire continent.  The urban police, the State constabulary of Pennsylvania, the rural systems of surveillance, the Secret Service, all municipal, provincial, State, and national organizations form but a few strands in the universal web he has woven.  Custom officials, revenue officers, the militia of the States, the army, the navy, the personnel of every city, State, and national legislative bodies form interdependent threads in the mesh he is master of; and, like a big beneficent spider, he sits in the center of his web, able to tell by the slightest tremor of any thread exactly where to begin investigations!”

Flushed, earnest, a trifle out of breath with his own eloquence, Gatewood waved his hand to indicate a Ciceronian period, adding, as Kerns’s incredulous smile broadened:  “Say splash again, and I’ll put you at his mercy!”

“Ker-splash! dear friend,” observed Kerns pleasantly.  “If a man doesn’t want to marry, the army, the navy, the Senate, the white wings, and the great White Father at Washington can’t make him.”

“I tell you I want to see you happy!” said Gatewood angrily.