He picked his way through the yards, the hammers of the stone dressers clinking out a not unmusical chorus from every shed, and skirting the docks where the ponderous cranes swung the great slabs to the canal boats, scrambled down a rough roadway into the quarry proper amidst all the hurly-burly of the teamsters and the hoarse steam drills. The walls of sandstone rose sheer around him, sliced down by the blasts like sugar with a scoop. Some of the formation was not unlike sugar little refined; some, lighter, with streaks of grayish pink, like sides of bacon; and some, a rich deep brown which architects specified the country over, was said to have no equal the world around save only in Japan. In the newly uncovered tract Shelby spied Bernard Graves pecking about with a little hammer. "Prospecting for gold?" he asked jocularly. "No; fucoids." "Eh?" "Fossils, you know; a sort of seaweed. The only kind we can discover in this formation." "My little freshwater college wasn't strong on the sciences," said Shelby, speculating whether this particular crotchet required humoring. As the young man's own interest in the topic seemed languid, he decided against this course and frankly told him that he wanted to talk with him. "Suppose we move away from the clatter of the drills," he suggested. Graves assented, and they shifted from beneath the overhanging bank of sandy loam to the shade of an unused derrick. "Smoke?" queried the politician, affably. Graves declined a cigar, explaining, "I merely take a cigarette now and then, usually after dinner." Shelby's contempt for cigarettes was boundless, but he dissembled his opinion, and lit the strongest cigar in his case. "It's up to me, Bernard," he confessed with a laugh. "It's my move, and I'm right on the spot like a little man, though humble pie isn't my favorite tidbit by a large majority." "Meaning what?" asked Graves, without animation. Behind the candidate's urbane mask rioted a lust to mar and maim, but his political self explained blandly:-- "Meaning that your checkmate in this morning's _Whig_ was well played." "I didn't write that editorial." "I know you didn't. It had the Volney Sprague earmarks. But you did what is more important,--you inspired it." "Well?" "Just this: in a general way I admit its justness, and come frankly to tell you so." "Why should you trouble yourself?" Shelby throttled his mounting ire. "Because," he returned slowly, "I recognize your ability and want your support. If you mean to interest yourself in politics, I can be of service to you. I know, of course, you don't think politicians are necessarily scamps." "I judge no class of men so summarily," Graves opened his mouth to protest. "That is too much like Burke's indictment against a whole people, you know." The allusion was not familiar, but Shelby said, "Exactly," with labored calm. He fancied that he detected a note of condescension, and resented it passionately.