“Yes, Mr. Morris.”

“You tell the men up your way to get ready to come to order, or we won’t get through in time—­it’s getting late.”

“All right, sir, I’ll take care of ’em.  Just as soon as you begin to speak you won’t hear a sound.”

As Minott moved from Morris’s seat another and louder shout arose from the other end of the table: 

“Garry, Garry, hurry up!” came the cry.  It was evident the young man was very popular.

Peter dropped his glasses from his nose, and turning toward Morris said in a low voice: 

“That’s a very breezy young man, Holker, the one who has just left us.  Got something in him, has he, besides noise?”

“Yes, considerable.  Wants toning down once in a while, but there’s no question of his ability or of his loyalty.  He never shirks a duty and never forgets a kindness.  Queer combination when you think of it, Peter.  What he will make of himself is another matter.”

Peter drew his body back and sent his thoughts out on an investigating tour.  He was wondering what effect the influence of a young man like Minott would have on a young man like Breen.

The waiters at this point brought in huge trays holding bowls of tobacco and long white clay pipes, followed by even larger trays bearing coffee in little cups.  Morris waited a moment and then rapped for order.  Instantly a hush fell upon the noisy room; plates and glasses were pushed back so as to give the men elbow room; pipes were hurriedly lighted, and each guest turned his chair so as to face the Chief, who was now on his feet.

As he stood erect, one hand behind his back, the other stretched toward the table in his appeal for silence, I thought for the hundredth time how kind his fifty years had been to him; how tightly knit his figure; how well his clothes became him.  A handsome, well-groomed man at all times and in any costume—­but never so handsome or so well groomed as in evening dress.  Everything in his make-up helped:  the broad, square shoulders, arms held close to his side; flat waist; incurving back and narrow hips.  His well-modelled, aristocratic head, too, seemed to gain increased distinction when it rose clear from a white shirt-front which served as a kind of marble pedestal for his sculptured head.  There was, moreover, in his every move and look, that quality of transparent sincerity which always won him friends at sight.  “If men’s faces are clocks,” Peter always said, “Holker’s is fitted with a glass dial.  You can not only see what time it is, but you can see the wheels that move his heart.”