Up and down Market Street tiptoed Daniel Sands that day, tightening his web of business and politics. Busily he fluttered over the web, his water pipes, his gas pipes, his electric wires. The pathway to the trade of the miners and the men in the shops and smelters lay through his door. Material prosperity for every merchant and every clerk in Market Street lay in the paunch of the old spider, and he could spin it out or draw it in as he chose. It was not usual for him to appear on Market Street. Dr. Nesbit had always been his vicegerent. And often it had pleased the Doctor to pretend that he was seeking their aid as friends and getting it solely upon the high grounds of friendship. But as the Doctor stood by his office window that day and saw the old spider dancing up and down the web, Dr. Nesbit knew the truth--and the truth was wormwood in his mouth--that he had been only an errand boy between greed in the bank and self-interest in the stores. In a flash, a merciless, cynical flash, he looked into his life in the capital, and there he saw with sickening distinctness that with all his power as a boss, with his control over Senators and Governors and courts and legislatures, he was still the errand boy--that he reigned as boss only because he could be trusted by those who controlled the great aggregations of capital in the state--the railroads, the insurance companies, the brewers, the public service corporations. In the street below walked a flashy youth who went in and out of the saloons in obvious pride of being. His complacent smile, his evident glory in himself, made Dr. Nesbit turn away and shut his eyes in shame. He had loathed the youth as a person unspeakable. Yet the youth also was a messenger--the errand boy of vice in South Harvey who doubtless thought himself a person of great power and consequence. And the difference between an errand boy of greed and the errand boy of vice was not sufficient to revive the Doctor's spirits. So the Doctor, sadly sobered, left the window. The gay enthusiasm of the diver plunging for the pearl was gone from the depressed little white clad figure. He was finding his pearl a burden rather than a joy. That evening Morty Sands, resplendent in purple and fine linen--the purple being a gorgeous necktie, and the fine linen a most sumptuous tailor-made shirt waist above a pair of white broadcloth trousers and silk hose, and under a fifty dollar Panama hat, tripped into the Brotherton store for his weekly armload of reading and tobacco. "Morty," said Mr. Brotherton, after the young man had picked out the latest word in literature and nicotine, "your father was in here to-day with instructions for me to chaperone you through the county convention Saturday,--you'll be on the delegation." The young man blinked good naturedly. "I haven't got the intellect to go through with it, George."