GEORGE HELM THE WORKS OF DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS George Helm The Price She Paid The Grain of Dust The Hungry Heart The Conflict The Husband’s Story White Magic The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig The Worth of a Woman Old Wives for New Light-fingered Gentry The Second Generation The Deluge The Social Secretary The Plum Tree The Cost The Master Rogue Golden Fleece A Woman Ventures The Great God Success D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK David Graham Phillips GEORGE HELM [Illustration] NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1912 COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Copyright, 1912, by Hearst’s Magazine _Published September, 1912_ Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE I. BEHIND THE BEARD 1 II. THE CAT’S-PAW 53 III. “THERE GOES A MAN” 98 IV. THE MATCH-MAKER 159 V. SEEING HER FATHER 210 VI. THE TEST 258 GEORGE HELM I BEHIND THE BEARD A comet so dim that it is almost invisible will cause agitated interest in the heavens where great fixed stars blaze nightly unnoticed. Harrison was a large Ohio river town, and in its firmament blazed many and considerable fixed stars--presenting pretty nearly all varieties of peculiarity in appearance and condition. But when George Helm appeared everybody concentrated upon him. “Did you see that young fellow with the red whiskers stumping down Main Street this afternoon?”--“Did you see that jay in the funny frock coat and the stove pipe hat?”--“Who’s the big hulking chap that looks as if he’d just landed from nowhere?”--“I saw the queerest looking mud-dauber of a lawyer or doctor--or maybe preacher--sitting on the steps of Mrs. Beaver’s boarding-house.”--“I saw him, too. He had nice eyes--gray and deep-set--and they twinkled as if he were saying, ‘Yes, I know I’m a joke of a greenhorn, but I’m human, and I like you, and I’d like you to like me.’”