Gradually, out of the chaotic melee in which these titans were engaged had emerged one group more powerful than the rest and more respectable, whose leader was the Personality to whom I have before referred.  He and his group had managed to gain control of certain conservative fortresses in various cities such as the Corn National Bank and the Ashuela Telephone Company—­to mention two of many:  Adolf Scherer was his ally, and the Boyne Iron Works, Limited, was soon to be merged by him into a greater corporation still.  Leonard Dickinson might be called his local governor-general.  We manned the parapets and kept our ears constantly to the ground to listen for the rumble of attacks; but sometimes they burst upon us fiercely and suddenly, without warning.  Such was the assault on the Ashuela, which for years had exercised an apparently secure monopoly of the city’s telephone service, which had been able to ignore with complacency the shrillest protests of unreasonable subscribers.  Through the Pilot it was announced to the public that certain benevolent “Eastern capitalists” were ready to rescue them from their thraldom if the city would grant them a franchise.  Mr. Lawler, the disinterestedness of whose newspaper could not be doubted, fanned the flame day by day, sent his reporters about the city gathering instances of the haughty neglect of the Ashuela, proclaiming its instruments antiquated compared with those used in more progressive cities, as compared with the very latest inventions which the Automatic Company was ready to install provided they could get their franchise.  And the prices!  These, too, would fall—­under competition.  It was a clever campaign.  If the city would give them a franchise, that Automatic Company—­so well named! would provide automatic instruments.  Each subscriber, by means of a numerical disk, could call up any other, subscriber; there would be no central operator, no listening, no tapping of wires; the number of calls would be unlimited.  As a proof of the confidence of these Eastern gentlemen in our city, they were willing to spend five millions, and present more than six hundred telephones free to the city departments!  What was fairer, more generous than this!  There could be no doubt that popular enthusiasm was enlisted in behalf of the “Eastern Capitalists,” who were made to appear in the light of Crusaders ready to rescue a groaning people from the thrall of monopoly.  The excitement approached that of a presidential election, and became the dominant topic at quick-lunch counters and in street-cars.  Cheap and efficient service!  Down with the Bastille of monopoly!

As counsel for the Ashuela, Mr. Ogilvy sent for me, and by certain secret conduits of information at my disposal I was not long in discovering the disquieting fact that a Mr. Orthwein, who was described as a gentleman with fat fingers and a plausible manner, had been in town for a week and had been twice seen entering and emerging from Monahan’s saloon.  In short, Mr. Jason had already been “seen.”  Nevertheless I went to him myself, to find him for the first time in my experience absolutely non-committal.