His salutation was merely, “Miss Kilgour.”  Colonel Dodd did not deal in many “Good-mornings.”  It was also reported in Marion and the state that his stock of urbanity was so small he was compelled to expend it very thriftily.  He certainly did not waste any of it on his office help.  He might have afforded at least one glance at the girl, for she was extremely pretty.  Still another report in Marion was to the effect that he had selected Kate Kilgour as his secretary as the final artistic touch to the beauty of his private office in order that he might have a perfect ensemble.  She did seem, so far as his interest in her went, to be only a part of that ensemble which he occasionally swept carelessly with his gaze—­he reserved all his intimate admiration for the bouquets.

She laid his “Strictly Personal” letters on his fresh blotter.

She sat down and began to read the business letters aloud, not waiting for his orders to begin.  It was her daily routine, business transacted as Colonel Dodd wished it to be transacted—­crisply, promptly, directly.

He dictated replies, usually laconic, even curt, as soon as she had finished each letter.  His eyes were on the flowers as he talked.

When the letters were finished she retired with her portfolio and her notes, the thick carpet muffling the sound of her withdrawal.

After he had slit the envelopes of his personal correspondence and had read the contents the colonel pushed another button.  The little man who had been waiting in the corridor slipped edgewise in at the door.  He was thin and elderly and his knob of a head, set well down on his pinched shoulders, had peering eyes on each side of that beak of a nose.  When he walked across the room his long arms were behind him under his coat-tails and held them extended, and he bore some resemblance to a bird.  In fact, one did not require much imagination to note resemblance to a bird in Peter Briggs—­many folks likened him to a woodpecker—­for he flitted to and fro in Colonel Dodd’s anteroom, among those awaiting audience, tapping here and rapping there with the metaphorical beak of questions, starting up the moths and grubs of business which men who came and waited hid under the bark of their demeanor.

“Seventeen, Colonel Dodd.  Five for real business; twelve of them are sponges.”

“The five?”

“Chief Engineer Snell of the Consolidated, Dr. Dohl of the State Board of Health, the three promoters of the Danburg Village Water system.”

“Send in Snell.”

Engineer Snell did not sit in the presence of his president, nor did the president ask him to sit.

“Briggs tells me the Danburg men are here.”

“They’re waiting out there, Colonel Dodd.”

“Quitting?”

“I don’t think so—­just yet.  They look too mad.  I gave ’em the harpoon in good shape, as is usual, but I didn’t expect they’d run here so soon.  Thought they would flop a little longer.”