Now it happened that there was another Crane in the House from the West, and Baldwin had a business motive for wishing to cultivate this particular Crane--and business was business still with Jim Baldwin. So, at Eleanor’s words, he turned on her. His air of scholar-and-gentleman, man-of-the-world, and person-of-inherited-leisure suddenly dropped from him; he was once more Jim Baldwin, the shoe-stitching-machine man. “Then let me tell you,” he said, authoritatively, “you made a big mistake. That man Crane is on the Committee on Manufactures, and we have been arguing with him, and sending the most expensive men we have to prove to him that we are entitled to the same rebate on the platinum used in our machines as the Oshkosh Shoe-Stitching-Machine people get--and I have reason to know that Crane is the man standing in the way. I wish you had snuggled right up to him.” Eleanor surveyed her father with cold displeasure. Mrs. Hill-Smith was politely oblivious, especially of the word “snuggled.” Coming, as she did, of a very old family which dated back to 1860, she felt a certain degree of commiseration for brand-new people like the Baldwins, who had not appeared above the social horizon until 1880--twenty years later. But she really liked them, and with a diplomatic instinct inherited from her father she relieved the situation by rising and saying: “I see dear Mrs. Baldwin on the balcony and must go and speak to her.” And as she flitted through the glass door a deep masculine voice just behind Eleanor said: “Good morning, Miss Baldwin.” It was the Honourable Edward George Francis Castlestuart-Stuart, third secretary of the British Embassy, whom Eleanor had asked to breakfast that morning. She grew pale as she rose to greet him--suppose--suppose he had heard that remark about the shoe-stitching machine? And what was more likely? The shoe-stitching machine was the family skeleton, and was usually kept under lock and key. By some occult and malign impulse her father had hauled it out and rattled it in Mrs. Hill-Smith’s face, and perhaps it might be known at the British Embassy! Baldwin himself realised the impropriety of his conduct, and tried to rectify it by saying, with great cordiality, to the Honourable Mr. Castlestuart-Stuart: “Good morning--good morning. Very pleased to see you. You find me, as usual, among my books--my best and oldest friends.” To this Castlestuart-Stuart replied simply, like the honest Briton that he was: “I hate books.”