to him was adding a year to his sentence.  He regretted he had not given the probation officer a stronger letter.  He remembered the young man now, and favorably.  A shy, silent youth, deft in work, and at other times conscious and embarrassed.  But that, on the part of a stenographer, in the presence of the Wisest Man in Wall Street, was not unnatural.  On occasions, Mr. Thorndike had put even royalty—­frayed, impecunious royalty, on the lookout for a loan—­at its ease.

The hood of the car was down, and the taste of the air, warmed by the sun, was grateful.  It was at this time, a year before, that young Spear picked the spring flowers to take to his mother.  A year from now where would young Spear be?

It was characteristic of the great man to act quickly, so quickly that his friends declared he was a slave to impulse.  It was these same impulses, leading so invariably to success, that made his enemies call him the Wisest Man.  He leaned forward and touched the chauffeur’s shoulder.  “Stop at the Court of General Sessions,” he commanded.  What he proposed to do would take but a few minutes.  A word, a personal word from him to the district attorney, or the judge, would be enough.  He recalled that a Sunday Special had once calculated that the working time of Arnold Thorndike brought him in two hundred dollars a minute.  At that rate, keeping Spear out of prison would cost a thousand dollars.

* * * * *

Out of the sunshine Mr. Thorndike stepped into the gloom of an echoing rotunda, shut in on every side, hung by balconies, lit, many stories overhead, by a dirty skylight.  The place was damp, the air acrid with the smell of stale tobacco juice, and foul with the presence of many unwashed humans.  A policeman, chewing stolidly, nodded toward an elevator shaft, and other policemen nodded him further on to the office of the district attorney.  There Arnold Thorndike breathed more freely.  He was again among his own people.  He could not help but appreciate the dramatic qualities of the situation; that the richest man in Wall Street should appear in person to plead for a humble and weaker brother.  He knew he could not escape recognition, his face was too well known, but, he trusted, for the sake of Spear, the reporters would make no display of his visit.  With a deprecatory laugh, he explained why he had come.  But the outburst of approbation he had anticipated did not follow.

The district attorney ran his finger briskly down a printed card.  “Henry Spear,” he exclaimed, “that’s your man.  Part Three, Judge Fallon.  Andrews is in that court.”  He walked to the door of his private office.  “Andrews!” he called.

He introduced an alert, broad-shouldered young man of years of much indiscretion and with a charming and inconsequent manner.

“Mr. Thorndike is interested in Henry Spear, coming up for sentence in Part Three this morning.  Wants to speak for him.  Take him over with you.”