"It's lucky we are that I didn't drop in after eliction, and the book in press," he remarked; "and I hope you'll give him a good photograph.

This's for you, I'll take this to Tim myself," and he handed the pen for Mr. Crewe to sign with.

Mr. Crewe read over the agreement carefully, as a business man should, before putting his signature to it. And then the senator, with renewed invitations for Mr. Crewe to call on him when he came to Newcastle, took his departure. Afterwards Mr. Crewe remained so long in reflection that his man Waters became alarmed, and sought him out and interrupted his revery.

The next morning Mrs. Pomfret, who was merely "driving by" with her daughter Alice and Beatrice Chillingham, spied Mr. Crewe walking about among the young trees he was growing near the road, and occasionally tapping them with his stout stick. She poked her coachman in the back and cried:--"Humphrey, you're such an important man now that I despair of ever seeing you again. What was the matter last night?"

"A politician from Newcastle," answered Mr. Crewe, continuing to tap the trees, and without so much as a glance at Alice.

"Well, if you're as important as this before you're elected, I can't think what it will be afterwards," Mrs. Pomfret lamented. "Poor dear Humphrey is so conscientious. When can you come, Humphrey?"

"Don't know," said Mr. Crewe; "I'll try to come tonight, but I may be stopped again. Here's Waters now."

The three people in Mrs. Pomfret's victoria were considerably impressed to see the dignified Waters hurrying down the slope from the house towards them. Mr. Crewe continued to tap the trees, but drew a little nearer the carriage.

"If you please, sir," said Waters, "there's a telephone call for you from Newcastle. It's urgent, sir."

"Who is it?"

"They won't give their names, sir."

"All right," said Mr. Crewe, and with a grin which spoke volumes for the manner in which he was harassed he started towards the house--in no great hurry, however. Reaching the instrument, and saying "Hello" in his usually gracious manner, he was greeted by a voice with a decided Hibernian-American accent.

"Am I talkin' to Mr. Crewe?"

"Yes."

"Mr. Humphrey Crewe?"

"Yes--yes, of course you are. Who are you?"

"I'm the president of the Paradise Benevolent and Military Association, Mr. Crewe. Boys that work in the mills, you know," continued the voice, caressingly. "Sure you've heard of us. We're five hundred strong, and all of us good Republicans as the president. We're to have our annual fall outing the first of October in Finney Grove, and we'd like to have you come down."

"The first of October?" said Mr. Crewe. "I'll consult my engagement book."

"We'd like to have a good picture of you in our programme, Mr. Crewe. We hope you'll oblige us. You're such an important figure in State politics now you'd ought to have a full page."

There was a short silence.

"What does it cost?" Mr. Crewe demanded.

"Sure," said the caressing voice of the president, "whatever you like."

"I'll send you a check for five dollars, and a picture," said Mr. Crewe.

The answer to this was a hearty laugh, which the telephone reproduced admirably. The voice now lost a little of its caressing note and partook of a harder quality.

"You're a splendid humorist, Mr. Crewe. Five dollars wouldn't pay for the plate and the paper. A gentleman like you could give us twenty-five, and never know it was gone. You won't be wanting to stop in the Legislature, Mr. Crewe, and we remember our friends in Newcastle."

"Very well, I'll see what I can do. Good-by, I've got an engagement,"

said Mr. Crewe, and slammed down the telephone. He seated himself in his chair, and the pensive mood so characteristic (we are told) of statesmen came over him once more.

While these and other conferences and duties too numerous to mention were absorbing Mr. Crewe, he was not too busy to bear in mind the pleasure of those around him who had not received such an abundance of the world's blessings as he. The townspeople of Leith were about to bestow on him their greatest gift. What could he do to show his appreciation? Wrestling with this knotty problem, a brilliant idea occurred to him,--he would have a garden-party: invite everybody in town, and admit them to the sanctities of Wedderburn; yes, even of Wedderburn house, that they might behold with their own eyes the carved ivory elephants and other contents of glass cabinets which reeked of the Sunday afternoons of youth. Being a man of action, Mr. Pardriff was summoned at once from Leith and asked for his lowest price on eight hundred and fifty invitations and a notice of the party in the Ripton Record.

"Goin' to invite Democrats, too?" demanded Mr. Pardriff, glancing at the check-list.

"Everybody," said Mr. Crewe, with unparalleled generosity. "I won't draw any distinction between friends and enemies. They're all neighbours."

"And some of 'em might, by accident, vote the Republican ticket," Mr.

Pardriff retorted, narrowing his eyes a little.

Mr. Crewe evidently thought this a negligible suggestion, for he did not reply to it, but presently asked for the political news in Ripton.

"Well," said Mr. Pardriff, "you know they tried to get Austen Vane to run for State senator, don't you?"

"Vane Why, he ain't a full-fledged lawyer yet. I've hired him in an unimportant case. Who asked him to run?"

"Young Tom Gaylord and a delegation."

"He couldn't have got it," said Mr. Crewe.

"I don't know," said Mr. Pardriff, "he might have given Billings a hustle for the nomination."

"You supported Billings, I noticed," said Mr. Crewe.

Mr. Pardriff winked an eye.

"I'm not ready to walk the ties when I go to Newcastle," he remarked, "and Nat ain't quite bankrupt yet. The Gaylords," continued Mr.

Pardriff, who always took the cynical view of a man of the world, "have had some row with the Northeastern over lumber shipments. I understand they're goin' to buck 'em for a franchise in the next Legislature, just to make it lively. The Gaylords ain't exactly poverty-stricken, but they might as well try to move Sawanec Mountain as the Northeastern."

It was a fact that young Tom Gaylord had approached Austen Vane with a "delegation" to request him to be a candidate for the Republican nomination for the State senate in his district against the railroad candidate and Austen's late opponent, the Honourable Nat Billings. It was a fact also that Austen had invited the delegation to sit down, although there were only two chairs, and that a wrestling match had ensued with young Tom, in the progress of which one chair had been broken. Young Tom thought it was time to fight the railroad, and perceived in Austen the elements of a rebel leader. Austen had undertaken to throw young Tom out of a front window, which was a large, old-fashioned one,--and after Herculean efforts had actually got him on the ledge, when something in the street caught his eye and made him desist abruptly. The something was the vision of a young woman in a brown linen suit seated in a runabout and driving a horse almost as handsome as Pepper.

When the delegation, after exhausting their mental and physical powers of persuasion, had at length taken their departure in disgust, Austen opened mechanically a letter which had very much the appearance of an advertisement, and bearing a one-cent stamp. It announced that a garden-party would take place at Wedderburn, the home of the Honourable Humphrey Crewe, at a not very distant date, and the honour of the bearer's presence was requested. Refreshments would be served, and the Ripton Band would dispense music. Below, in small print, were minute directions where to enter, where to hitch your team, and where to go out.

Austen was at a loss to know what fairy godmother had prompted Mr. Crewe to send him an invitation, the case of the injured horse not having advanced with noticeable rapidity. Nevertheless, the prospect of the garden-party dawned radiantly for him above what had hitherto been a rather gloomy horizon. Since the afternoon he had driven Victoria to the Hammonds' he had had daily debates with an imaginary man in his own likeness who, to the detriment of his reading of law, sat across his table and argued with him. The imaginary man was unprincipled, and had no dignity, but he had such influence over Austen Vane that he had induced him to drive twice within sight of Fairview gate, when Austen Vane had turned round again. The imaginary man was for going to call on her and letting subsequent events take care of themselves; Austen Vane, had an uncomfortable quality of reducing a matter first of all to its simplest terms. He knew that Mr. Flint's views were as fixed, ineradicable, and unchangeable as an epitaph cut in a granite monument; he felt (as Mr. Flint had) that their first conversation had been but a forerunner of, a strife to come between them; and add to this the facts that Mr. Flint was very rich and Austen Vane poor, that Victoria's friends were not his friends, and that he had grave doubts that the interest she had evinced in him sprang from any other incentive than a desire to have communication with various types of humanity, his hesitation as to entering Mr. Flint's house was natural enough.

It was of a piece with Mr. Crewe's good fortune of getting what he wanted that the day of the garden-party was the best that September could do in that country, which is to say that it was very beautiful. A pregnant stillness enwrapped the hills, a haze shot with gold dust, like the filmiest of veils, softened the distant purple and the blue-black shadows under the pines. Austen awoke from his dream in this enchanted borderland to find himself in a long line of wagons filled with people in their Sunday clothes,--the men in black, and the young women in white, with gay streamers, wending their way through the rear-entrance drive of Wedderburn, where one of Mr. Crewe's sprucest employees was taking up the invitation cards like tickets,--a precaution to prevent the rowdy element from Ripton coming and eating up the refreshments.

Austen obediently tied Pepper in a field, as he was directed, and made his way by a path through the woods towards the house, where the Ripton Band could be heard playing the second air in the programme, "Don't you wish you'd Waited?"

For a really able account of that memorable entertainment see the Ripton Record of that week, for we cannot hope to vie with Mr. Pardriff when his heart is really in his work. How describe the noble figure of Mr.

Crewe as it burst upon Austen when he rounded the corner of the house?

Clad in a rough-and-ready manner, with a Gladstone collar to indicate the newly acquired statesmanship, and fairly radiating geniality, Mr.

Crewe stood at the foot of the steps while the guests made the circuit of the driveway; and they carefully avoided, in obedience to a warning sign, the grass circle in the centre. As man and wife confronted him, Mr. Crewe greeted them in hospitable but stentorian tones that rose above the strains of "Don't you wish you'd Waited?" It was Mr. Ball who introduced his townspeople to the great man who was to represent them.

"How are you?" said Mr. Crewe, with his eyes on the geraniums. "Mr.

and Mrs. Perley Wright, eh? Make yourselves at home. Everything's free--you'll find the refreshments on the back porch--just have an eye to the signs posted round, that's all." And Mr. and Mrs. Perley Wright, overwhelmed by such a welcome, would pass on into a back eddy of neighbours, where they would stick, staring at a sign requesting them please not to pick the flowers.

"Can't somebody stir 'em up?" Mr. Crewe shouted in an interval when the band had stopped to gather strength for a new effort. "Can't somebody move 'em round to see the cows and what's in the house and the automobile and the horses? Move around the driveway, please. It's so hot here you can't breathe. Some of you wanted to see what was in the house.

Now's your chance."