It was evident the mind of the great man was elsewhere.  Young men who, drunk or sober, spent the firm’s money on women who disappeared before sunrise did not appeal to him.  Another letter submitted that morning had come from his art agent in Europe.  In Florence he had discovered the Correggio he had been sent to find.  It was undoubtedly genuine, and he asked to be instructed by cable.  The price was forty thousand dollars.  With one eye closed, and the other keenly regarding the inkstand, Mr. Thorndike decided to pay the price; and with the facility of long practice dismissed the Correggio, and snapped his mind back to the present.

“Spear had a letter from us when he left, didn’t he?” he asked.  “What he has developed into, since he left us—­” he shrugged his shoulders.  The secretary withdrew the letter, and slipped another in its place.

“Homer Firth, the landscape man,” he chanted, “wants permission to use blue flint on the new road, with turf gutters, and to plant silver firs each side.  Says it will run to about five thousand dollars a mile.”

“No!” protested the great man firmly, “blue flint makes a country place look like a cemetery.  Mine looks too much like a cemetery now.  Landscape gardeners!” he exclaimed impatiently.  “Their only idea is to insult nature.  The place was better the day I bought it, when it was running wild; you could pick flowers all the way to the gates.”  Pleased that it should have recurred to him, the great man smiled.  “Why, Spear,” he exclaimed, “always took in a bunch of them for his mother.  Don’t you remember, we used to see him before breakfast wandering around the grounds picking flowers?” Mr. Thorndike nodded briskly.  “I like his taking flowers to his mother.”

“He said it was to his mother,” suggested the secretary gloomily.

“Well, he picked the flowers, anyway,” laughed Mr. Thorndike.  “He didn’t pick our pockets.  And he had the run of the house in those days.  As far as we know,” he dictated, “he was satisfactory.  Don’t say more than that.”

The secretary scribbled a mark with his pencil.  “And the landscape man?”

“Tell him,” commanded Thorndike, “I want a wood road, suitable to a farm; and to let the trees grow where God planted them.”

As his car slid downtown on Tuesday morning the mind of Arnold Thorndike was occupied with such details of daily routine as the purchase of a railroad, the Japanese loan, the new wing to his art gallery, and an attack that morning, in his own newspaper, upon his pet trust.  But his busy mind was not too occupied to return the salutes of the traffic policemen who cleared the way for him.  Or, by some genius of memory, to recall the fact that it was on this morning young Spear was to be sentenced for theft.  It was a charming morning.  The spring was at full tide, and the air was sweet and clean.  Mr. Thorndike considered whimsically that to send a man to jail with the memory of such a morning clinging