“Don’t you?  You’ve been protesting to beat the band about the lawlessness and dissipation of the MacMorrogh camps.  Accordingly, Mr. Colbrith comes over here to see for himself:  and what will he see?  Decency on a monument smiling reproachfully at her unprincipled traducer.  MacMorrogh will rub it into you good and hard.  Can’t you feel the Sunday-school atmosphere right here in the headquarters this morning?  Look down yonder at the Nadia—­wouldn’t that soothe you, now?”

Ford looked and the scowl which was coming to be a habit transformed itself into a cynical smile.  A hundred or more of the MacMorrogh laborers, hats off and standing at respectful attention, were clustered about the rear platform of the private car, and Mr. Colbrith was addressing them; giving them the presidential benediction, as Frisbie put it irreverently.

“Don’t you see how you are going to be hoisted with your own ammunition?” the little man went on spitefully.  “What becomes of all your complaints of drunkenness and crime, when Mr. Colbrith can see with his own eyes what truly good people the MacMorroghs are?  And what conclusion will he arrive at?  There’s only one, and it’s a long-armed one so far as your reputation is concerned:  you are so desperately bent on having your own way that you haven’t scrupled to tell lies about these angelic contractors.”

“Let up, Dick,” said Ford gruffly.  “I’ve got about all I can carry till I catch up on sleep a little.  But you’re right:  this is the place where the fireworks come in.  I think I’ll go and light the fuses while I’m keyed up to it.”

The crowd of laborers had dispersed by the time Ford reached the Nadia, and the president, benign from the reactionary effect of his own early-morning eloquence, was waiting for him.

“Ah; we did reach the front safely, after all, didn’t we, Mr. Ford?” was Mr. Colbrith’s mildly sarcastic greeting.  And then:  “Come aboard, sir; we are waiting breakfast for you.”

Ford would have declined promptly, if the invitation had been anything less than a command.  He had met none of the members of the private-car party save Miss Alicia, and he did not want to meet them, having the true captain-of-industry’s horror of mixing business with the social diversions.  But with one example of the president’s obstinacy fresh in mind, he yielded and climbed obediently to the railed platform.  Whatever happened, he should see Alicia again, a privilege never to be too lightly esteemed, whatever it cost.

The social ordeal was not so formidable.  The private-car party was made up of the president and his sister-in-law, the president’s family physician, Doctor Van Bruce, the doctor’s wife, his sister, a maiden lady of no uncertain age, and Alicia.  These, with Penfield and Ford, made the eight at table in the open compartment in the Nadia; and Ford, in the seating, was lucky enough to find his place between Miss Van Bruce, who was hard of hearing, and Miss Alicia, who was not.  Luckily again, Mr. Colbrith omitted all talk of business, drawing his end of the table into a discussion of the effects of the dry altitudes in advanced stages of tuberculosis.