Mr. Beekman was a tall, angular man, past the prime of life, as was shown by the gray in his thick hair, curling at the ends, and in the stiff, projecting ruff of beard under his chin. His face was thin, hungry, with a plaintive effect of deep lines, and his great blue-black eyes were often tearful, like a young robin’s, in their intent watchfulness. He was almost wholly Dutch in parentage--of that silent, persistent, quietly-masterful race which, despite all the odds, has still held more than its own in Stuyvesant’s State--and the descent showed itself in the dusky hue of his skin. He had never been a wealthy man, though he came of a family decently supplied with substance, and of long settlement in the county. He had climbed to his present eminence after a long career in local politics, by that process of exhaustion which we call the survival of the fittest. Having attained it, his rule was that of a just despot, rewarding and binding still more closely to him the faithful, remorselessly crushing all signs of rivalry, and putting the recalcitrant without pity to fire and sword. He had an almost supernatural faculty of organizing information, and getting at the motives of men. He sniffed treachery as a deer in the breeze sniffs the dog, and he had an oriental way of striking with cruel swiftness, before anybody but the guilty victim suspected offence. Withal, he was a kindly man to those who deserved well of him, an upright citizen according to his lights, and a profound believer in his party. He sat now chewing an unlighted cigar, with his feet on the hearth of the stove, and contemplated Milton at his leisure. He did not like Milton at all, and one of his chief reasons for doubting the real ability of Albert Fairchild was his choice of such an agent and confidant. At last he said, curtly: “It’s you, is it? I’ve got no business with you! Where’s Fairchild?” There was something in Beekman’s eager, searching way of looking at a man with those big bright eyes of his which, coupled with the question, embarrassed Milton, and he fumbled with his hat as he repeated the explanation he had given to the messenger. He was annoyed with himself for being thus disturbed. The Boss looked his visitor out of countenance once more. Then he said: “Sit daown! Well, what is it to be?” ‘Milton grinned, and leaned forward familiarly in his chair. “I sh’d ruther think that was fur you to say.” “Oh, you think so, do yeh? You imagine you’ve got me on the hip, ay?” “Well, p’raps we’re no jedge, but it sorts o’ looks that way, now, don’t it?” Milton tipped back his chair, satisfiedly, and put one of his big feet up on the hearth, to dispute possession with the Boss. Beekman reflected for a minute: then he began, after glancing at the clock: