"Is Mr. Latimer out," he asked the mulatto who brought up his valise. "Yes, sir. He was called out by a message. He left a note for you on the desk." Baird went to the desk and found it. It contained only a few lines. "Everything is prepared for you. The audience will be the best you have had at any time. I have been sent for by the man Stamps. He is ill of pneumonia and wishes to deliver some letters to me. I will be with you before you go on the platform." Since he had left Washington, Baird had heard from Latimer but once and then but briefly. He had felt that his dark mood was upon him, and this reference to letters recalled the fact. "Stamps is the little man with the cattle claim," he commented to himself. "He comes from the neighbourhood of the Cross-roads. What letters could he have to hand over?" And he began to dress, wondering vaguely. * * * * * Stamps had spent a sleepless night. He could not sleep because his last interview with Linthicum had driven him hard, even though he had been able to promise him the required five hundred dollars; he also could not sleep because the air of the city had been full of talk about the promising outlook of the De Willoughby claim. Over the reports he had heard, he had raged almost with tears. "The Dwillerbys is ristycrats," he had said. "They're ristycrats, an' it gives 'em a pull even if they was rebels an' Southerners. A pore man ez works hard an' ain't nothin' but a honest farmer, an' a sound Union man ain't got no show. Ef I'd been a ristycrat I could hev got inflooence ez hed hev pulled wires fur me. But I hain't nothin' but my loyal Union principles. I ain't no ristycrat, an' I never aimed to be none."