“I’ve no doubt it may appear so, but take the proceedings in this legislature.  I’ve no doubt you know something about them, and that you would maintain they are justified on account of the indifference of the public, and of other reasons, but I can cite an instance that is simply legalized thieving.”  For the first time a note of indignation crept into Krebs’s voice.  “Last night I discovered by a mere accident, in talking to a man who came in on a late train, that a bill introduced yesterday, which is being rushed through the Judiciary Committee of the House—­an apparently innocent little bill—­will enable, if it becomes a law, the Boyne Iron Works, of your city, to take possession of the Ribblevale Steel Company, lock, stock, and barrel.  And I am told it was conceived by a lawyer who claims to be a respectable member of his profession, and who has extraordinary ability, Theodore Watling.”

Krebs put his hand in his pocket and drew out a paper.  “Here’s a copy of it,—­House Bill 709.”  His expression suddenly changed.  “Perhaps Mr. Watling is a friend of yours.”

“I’m with his firm,” I replied....

Krebs’s fingers closed over the paper, crumpling it.

“Oh, then, you know about this,” he said.  He was putting the paper back into his pocket when I took it from him.  But my adroitness, so carefully schooled, seemed momentarily to have deserted me.  What should I say?  It was necessary to decide quickly.

“Don’t you take rather a—­prejudiced view of this, Krebs?” I said.  “Upon my word, I can’t see why you should accept a rumour running around the lobbies that Mr. Watling drafted this bill for a particular purpose.”

He was silent.  But his eyes did not leave my face.

“Why should any sensible man, a member of the legislature, take stock in that kind of gossip?” I insisted.  “Why not judge this bill by its face, without heeding a cock and bull story as to how it may have originated?  It is a good bill, or a bad bill?  Let’s see what it says.”

I read it.

“So far as I can see, it is legislation which we ought to have had long ago, and tends to compel a publicity in corporation affairs that is much needed, to put a stop to practices which every decent citizen deplores.”

He drew the paper out of my hand.

“You needn’t go on, Paret,” he told me.  “It’s no use.”

“Well, I’m sorry we don’t agree,” I said, and got up.  I left him twisting the paper in his fingers.

Beside the clerk’s desk in the Potts House, relating one of his anecdotes, I spied Colonel Varney, and managed presently to draw him upstairs to his room.  “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Do you know a man named Krebs in the House?” I said.

“From Elkington?  Why, that’s the man the Hutchinses let slip through,—­the Hutchinses, who own the mills over there.  The agitators put up a job on them.”  The Colonel was no longer the genial and social purveyor of anecdotes.  He had become tense, alert, suspicious.  “What’s he up to?”