"Just fishing; that's what Mr. Bassford said, but he didn't know where. Father was going to call a special session of the legislature to investigate him, and he was so angry that he ran off so that papa would have to look after those bonds himself. Then this Appleweight case came up, and that worried papa a great deal. Here's his call for the special session. He told Mr. Bassford to hold that, too, until he came back from New Orleans." Ardmore read Governor Dangerfield's summons to the legislature with profound interest. It was signed, but the space for the date on which the law-makers were to assemble had been left blank. "It looks to me as though you had the whole state in your hands, Miss Dangerfield. But I don't believe we ought to call the special session just yet. It would be sure to injure the state's credit, and it will be a lot more fun to catch Foster. I wonder if he took all the state money with him." "Mr. Bassford said he didn't know and couldn't find out, for the clerks in the treasurer's office wouldn't tell him a single thing." "One should never deal with subordinates," remarked Ardmore sagely. "Deal with the principals--I heard a banker say that once, and he was a man who knew everything. Besides, it will be more fun to attend to the bonds ourselves." He seemed lost in reverie for several minutes, and she asked with some impatience what he was studying about. "I was trying to think of a word they use when the government has war or any kind of trouble. It's something about a corpse, but I can't remember it." "A corpse? How perfectly horrid! Can it be possible, Mr. Ardmore, that you mean the writ of habeas corpus?" The twinkle in his eye left her unable to determine whether his ignorance was real, or assumed for his own amusement. "That's it," beamed Ardmore. "We've got to suspend it if worst comes to worst. Then you can put anybody you like into a dungeon, and nobody can get him out--not for a million years." "I wonder where they keep it?" asked Jerry. "It must be here somewhere. Perhaps it's in the safe." "I don't think it's a thing, like a lemon, or a photograph, or a bottle of ink; it's a document, like a Thanksgiving proclamation, and you order out the militia, and the soldiers have to leave their work and assemble at their armories, and it's all very serious, and somebody is likely to get shot." "I don't think it would be nice to shoot people," said Jerry. "That would do the administration a terrible lot of harm." "Of course we won't resort to extreme measures unless we are forced to it. And then, after we have exhausted all the means at our command, we can call on the president to send United States troops." He was proud of his knowledge, which had lingered in his sub-consciousness from a review of the military power of the states which he had heard once from Griswold, who knew about such matters; but he was brought to earth promptly enough.