“It was brave work.  They called it heart disease, but it’s not easy to fool insurance people.  They took him out of his grave and proved suicide—­and they did not pay a dollar of insurance to his family.  They were not obliged to.  The policies were new and the suicide clause let the companies out.  So he left only debts instead of twenty-five thousand dollars.  However, I say it was brave work.”

“It would have been braver to stay and face it,” blurted Farr.

“But Andrew Kilgour had a code of his own—­a state of mind some of us could not understand—­the example of an ancestor.  We are not all alike.  Many cannot stay and face trouble.  You might be able to do it—­you seem to have a level head!”

Farr grew pale, his hands trembled on the arms of his chair, and then he got up and marched across the little shop to the window, turning his back on Citizen Drew.

“You told them in City Hall that you would stay here and fight,” pursued Citizen Drew.  “That is brave work.”

“I’ll be much obliged to you, Citizen Drew, if you’ll leave me out of your catalogue of heroes.  And I take back what I said about his facing it.  I hadn’t any right to make any such comment.”

“So the girl went to work in Symonds Dodd’s office and his nephew is courting her.  I hope he doesn’t get Andrew Kilgour’s daughter.  He never went after any other girl honestly.  I have looked into this case because I was Andrew’s friend.  Young Dodd wants to marry her and the mother is helping him.  But I know that rapscallion, Mr. Farr.  I can’t believe that Kate Kilgour will be caught by him.”

“He has a fine position, they tell me,” said Farr, still gazing out of the window.

“The Machine made old Peleg Johnstone state treasurer, and he doesn’t know bonds from biscuit.  Colonel Dodd put in his nephew as chief clerk, and old Peleg is a figure-head, smoking his pipe in the back office and resting his wool-tipped boots on his desk.  Oh, I know the bunch of ’em, sir.  I can tell you the inside of things.  Young Dodd takes orders from his uncle and runs the treasury.  All the state’s money is in the Dodd banks on the checking-account basis—­and the gang is letting it out at six percent.  Tidy little profit!  And nobody to say a word, even to ask how Richard Dodd finds so much money to spend.  But that’s the principal wonder in the world, Mr. Farr—­how your neighbor gets his money to blow.  Jones, Smith, Brown, and Robinson—­they stand and look at one another and ask the same question.  And folks in the Eleventh Ward are even asking me how you get your living,” added Citizen Drew, smoothing his curiosity with a bit of jocoseness.

“I have been working in this city—­doing good, hard work,” stated Farr, moving toward the door.

“Yes, but you have been discharged.”

“I understand how it is you know so much stuff to tell me,” returned the young man, smiling.  “Well, Citizen Drew, I’m going to take the first job that offers itself.  Tell ’em that!”