"What have you been doing there?" the elder sister demanded, her momentary fright making her indignation even greater.

"Listenin'," replied the culprit, shamelessly.

"Patricia Gorham!" For Alice to use the child's full name conveyed the absolute limit of reproach, but Patricia stood her ground fearlessly.

"I'm not ashamed--I've simply _got_ to know my future. You'll stick to what you said, won't you, Alice?"

"You ought to be punished!"

"But you won't marry Allen, will you?" Pat pleaded, unblushingly. "You can have Mr. Covington and I will have Allen, and we all will be happy ever afterward."

"Oh, you--kids, that's what you both are!" Alice cried in sheer desperation. "Between you, I can't get a moment's peace."

"He would make a lovely Knight." Patricia's face a.s.sumed an enraptured expression. "Oh, I wish I was a damosel, with a vessel of gold between my hands, and Allen was Sir Launcelot, and I would say, 'Wit ye well,'

and he would kneel and say his prayers to me, and--Alice, what does 'Wit ye well' mean, anyhow?"

But Alice had fled, leaving Patricia the victrix of her bloodless battle-field.

XVIII

James Riley's information, while causing Gorham some concern, was not the matter which gave him the greatest anxiety during the days he pa.s.sed away from his office. The fact that Buckner was in town was not altogether surprising, and his maudlin comments need not necessarily be seriously considered. In addition to the commission he intrusted to young Riley, Gorham also set in motion the wheels of his own secret-service department, feeling confident that he would soon learn all the facts. The conduct of the current business of the Companies, complex as it had now become, appeared to be advancing steadily along the lines which he himself had laid down for it, and he saw no reason to think that his temporary absence was causing the slightest disarrangement of the delicately adjusted machine upon which depended the continued momentum of the business. This interested him particularly, as he considered that the crowning point of his successful formation of the Consolidated Companies would not be attained until his actual contact with the business was not required.

But great enterprises do not expand themselves without the jealous watchfulness of other competing or interested organizations, and Gorham's daily reports contained an increasing number of references to the efforts being made by these to hara.s.s the Consolidated Companies with governmental interference. Senator Kenmore had by this time become the chief spokesman of the Companies in Washington. Since his first exhaustive examination into its affairs, his doubts as to the possibility of conducting so mammoth a consolidation along conscientious lines had been dissipated by the absolute straightness of the course which Gorham steered. His influence had been exerted frequently in behalf of the Companies, and each time the success which thus came to the corporation carried in its wake advantages to the people, just as Gorham had promised. The Senator had become one of Gorham's stanchest admirers and supporters, and the president of the Consolidated Companies in turn relied fully upon him. For several weeks Kenmore's correspondence had suggested certain unrest in the Senate concerning trusts and consolidations, so when Gorham received from him an urgent summons to come to Washington at once, it left no room for doubt as to the necessity which prompted its sending, and obliged him for the present to abandon his idea of rest.

Gorham found Kenmore awaiting him in his office, and the Senator, with characteristic directness, came to the point at once.

"Some one is starting up another scare on monopolies and combinations, and is making the Consolidated Companies the target. Do you know anything about it?"

"Does it come from New York State?" Gorham asked.

"Yes; the junior senator is at the head of it."

"He is a Tammany man."

"Yes."

"Brady made him, and now he is collecting his fee. The Consolidated Companies. .h.i.t Brady hard in the Manhattan Traction deal, you remember.

How much headway has it gained?"

"Enough to be dangerous; that's why I wrote as I did."

"It can't be dangerous while we have the people so strongly with us, but it might become troublesome. Whom do you want me to see?"

"The President. I have made an appointment with him half an hour from now. The Senator from New York has touched him a bit by demanding why he is haling the other great corporations into court, and leaving the Consolidated Companies to grow larger and stronger without opposition."

"Have you discussed the matter with the President?"

"No; I thought it best to let you present it as a whole. Come--we shall find him ready for us."

The President received his callers in his office. He was a great President, and as such realized, as some of his predecessors had not, that the country of which he was the chief executive was constantly outgrowing the legislation which had been wise at the time of its enactment. He realized that as expansion comes conditions change, and these changed conditions necessitate the exercise of a far-seeing and a far-reaching judgment in administering the law in its spirit rather than always in its letter; but the experience he had gained in the White House had taught him the difficulties which beset his path in living up to his convictions. Gorham had been frequently called to his councils for advice upon various subjects, and the President was familiar with the Consolidated Companies in conception and operation.

"We are accused of discrimination, Mr. Gorham," the President explained, after the first greetings. "You and I have discussed the Consolidated Companies upon various occasions; I have watched its operations carefully, and I am free to say that my early apprehensions have thus far proved groundless. I believe that I have acted conscientiously in pushing the investigations and prosecutions against those combinations which are really a menace to the country; but there are some who disagree with me, and flaunt the Consolidated Companies in my face as an evidence of insincerity on my part. I have asked you and Senator Kenmore to meet me here this afternoon, to talk over the question quite informally with the senator from New York and with the Attorney-General."

"I appreciate the opportunity, Mr. President," Gorham replied, quietly.

"Then we are all ready for the discussion," said the President, touching a b.u.t.ton. "They are waiting--I will send for them."

Upon the arrival of the others, he repeated to them what he had said to Gorham, and then, settling back in his chair, became an interested listener, leaving Gorham and the senator from New York as the princ.i.p.al disputants, with Kenmore and the Attorney-General joining in the argument from time to time.

"Do I understand that Mr. Gorham speaks for the Administration in this matter?" asked Senator Hunt, with some asperity.

"I speak for the Consolidated Companies, and for that alone," Gorham replied, promptly.

"Then you will perhaps explain why your corporation, the largest trust in existence to-day, is immune, while other trusts are being persecuted to the extent of the Government's power."

"I am not authorized to answer any question which has to do with the Government," Gorham continued; "but it may be that it is due to the same reason that some of the 'other trusts' you mention are not as yet incorporated as a part of the Consolidated Companies."

"Then they have been approached?" the Senator asked, quickly.

"Several of them have approached us; but they have thus far been unwilling to accept the principles upon which the Consolidated Companies is founded."

"You refer to its alleged benevolent aspect?"

"Yes, if you choose to call it that," Gorham replied, smiling. "We prefer to call it reciprocity. If we receive favors in the form of concessions from the people, we believe it to be not only fair, but also sound business, to use these concessions not to bleed them, but for their benefit."

"In other words, the Consolidated Companies is a good trust, and the others are bad trusts?"

"Exactly."

"The Sherman Act, if I read it correctly, makes no distinction."

"But the Government does."

"And to that extent unlawfully discriminates," the Senator said, emphatically.

"What would be the effect upon the country if the Sherman Act were enforced literally?" Gorham asked.

"That is not for me to say."

"Perhaps the Attorney-General will give us his opinion," Gorham persisted.

The Attorney-General had been listening to the discussion with much interest.

"There can be but one answer to that question," he replied; "it would produce an industrial reign of terror, and yet I am frank to say that, from a legal standpoint, I believe Senator Hunt is correct in his statement that the Government unlawfully discriminates in drawing any distinction between good and bad trusts; but let me say further, that it is my definite opinion that the Sherman Act, as it now stands, is a menace to the country. That Act, literally interpreted, would break up every trust into smaller corporations. It is based on a hasty inference that great consolidations are of necessity monopolies. Even if we disintegrated a great corporation like the Consolidated Companies, for instance, into a large number of smaller corporations, we should not have solved the problem. There would always be methods by which a common understanding could be reached, and, in the disintegration, producing concerns would lose much of the efficiency in serving the public which has already been demonstrated by the Consolidated Companies. I have answered your question frankly, giving you my opinion from a legal and also from a personal standpoint."