Mr. Laurence, leaving the house, had debated momently in which of two opposite directions he should proceed, then he turned up Herkimer Street; to get the papers from Lalor was part of that “business” which, to a man, comes first. The air did not mellow after that initial plunge into it, it became almost unbearably keen not only in the blue shadows that lay along the freezing snow, but even where the sunshine set it glittering. Half of the walks were shovelled to make a narrow, icy pathway, but where there were unoccupied lots the drifts lay white and high, broken only by the deep leg-prints of commuters. As he strode swiftly on men shot from several houses; a very fat man, a tall one, a short one, their black figures sprinting madly in line across the white expanse towards the sound of a train slowing into the station. Mr. Laurence’s brows contracted unconsciously—he ought to be on that train himself. If it were not for getting that paper from Lalor—the case was an important one, a good deal of Mr. Laurence’s future depended on it; he had taken it up rather against the advice of his closest friends, they thought it would be impossible to win it, but he had that little inner conviction, that intangible sense of mastery that often spells success. It gave him a nervous power that on occasion seemed to have no end, but just because it was a matter of highly strung nerves a tiny obstruction jarred them out of use; the tension was gone beyond immediate recall—it might take hours or days even to get the instrument back to that pitch—it might never get there. It was sometimes almost in the nature of self-preservation when he shut himself off from the minor pressure, the minor affairs. In this present instance, as he strode along his mind was bent on Lalor, whose former subordinate connection with the incriminated corporation seemed to have been forgotten by every one but himself. Lalor was a shifty, uncertain genius, not to be depended on, yet from whom some central facts would have to be wrested; the trouble was to keep hold of him; he required constant bolstering up. “Why, Mrs. Lalor!” Laurence stopped short as he nearly collided with a very slight woman, blown at him at the turn of the corner by a sweeping gale that devastated the sunshine. “Here, turn around for a moment until that blast is over.”