I have never realized more strongly than in that moment the psychological force of prestige.  Little by little, for five years, an estimate of the extent of Miller Gorse’s power had been coming home to me, and his features stood in my mind for his particular kind of power.  He was a tremendous worker, and often remained in his office until ten and eleven at night.  He dismissed the stenographer by the wave of a hand which seemed to thrust her bodily out of the room.

“Hello, Miller,” said Mr. Watling.

“Hello, Theodore,” replied Mr. Gorse.

“This is Paret, of my office.”

“I know,” said Mr. Gorse, and nodded toward me.  I was impressed by the felicity with which a cartoonist of the Pilot had once caricatured him by the use of curved lines.  The circle of the heavy eyebrows ended at the wide nostrils; the mouth was a crescent, but bowed downwards; the heavy shoulders were rounded.  Indeed, the only straight line to be discerned about him was that of his hair, black as bitumen, banged across his forehead; even his polished porphyry eyes were constructed on some curvilinear principle, and never seemed to focus.  It might be said of Mr. Gorse that he had an overwhelming impersonality.  One could never be quite sure that one’s words reached the mark.

In spite of the intimacy which I knew existed between them, in my presence at least Mr. Gorse’s manner was little different with Mr. Watling than it was with other men.  Mr. Wading did not seem to mind.  He pulled up a chair close to the desk and began, without any preliminaries, to explain his errand.

“It’s about the Ribblevale affair,” he said.  “You know we have a suit.”

Gorse nodded.

“We’ve got to get at the books, Miller,—­that’s all there is to it.  I told you so the other day.  Well, we’ve found out a way, I think.”

He thrust his hand in his pocket, while the railroad attorney remained impassive, and drew out the draft of the bill.  Mr. Gorse read it, then read it over again, and laid it down in front of him.

“Well,” he said.

“I want to put that through both houses and have the governor’s signature to it by the end of the week.”

“It seems a little raw, at first sight, Theodore,” said Mr. Gorse, with the suspicion of a smile.

My chief laughed a little.

“It’s not half so raw as some things I might mention, that went through like greased lightning,” he replied.  “What can they do?  I believe it will hold water.  Tallant’s, and most of the other newspapers in the state, won’t print a line about it, and only Socialists and Populists read the Pilot.  They’re disgruntled anyway.  The point is, there’s no other way out for us.  Just think a moment, bearing in mind what I’ve told you about the case, and you’ll see it.”

Mr. Gorse took up the paper again, and read the draft over.