"Why, this outrageous article!" and she thrust a newspaper under his eyes. "Do you mean to say you haven't seen the morning paper?" "To tell you the truth, Miss Dangerfield, I hardly ever read the papers." "What's that you were reading when I came in?" she demanded severely, withholding the paper until she should be answered. "It's a book about the government, and the powers reserved to the states and that sort of thing. I was just reading the constitution; I thought it might help us--I mean _you_--in your work." "The constitution help me? Hasn't it occurred to you before this that what I'm doing is all against the constitution and the revised statutes and all those books you see on the shelf there?" "But the constitution sounds all right. It seems remarkably reasonable. You couldn't ask anything fairer than that!" "So are the ten commandments fair enough; but you're on the wrong track, Mr. Ardmore, if you're trying to support the present administration with stupid things in books. I don't follow precedents, Mr. Ardmore; I create them." "But I should think you would have to be awfully careful not to mix up the business of the executive and judicial branches of the government. I think I heard Grissy speak of that once, though I'm not certain. Grissy knows more than almost any other living man." "I don't doubt that your friend is a well-educated person, but in times like these you've got to rise above the constitution; and just now it's more convenient to forget it. There's a constitution of North Carolina, too, if you're looking for constitutions, but in good society such things are not mentioned. Papa always refers to the constitution with tears in his eyes when he's making speeches, but papa's very emotional. If I could make a speech I should tell the people what I think of them--that they're too silly and stupid for words." "You are right, Miss Dangerfield. I have felt exactly that way about the people ever since I was defeated for alderman in New York. But let me have the paper." She turned to the morning mail while he read, and opened the envelopes rapidly. Such of the letters as she thought interesting or important she put aside, and when Ardmore finished reading a double-leaded telegram from Columbia, in which the governor of South Carolina was quoted as declaring his intention of taking immediate steps for the apprehension of Appleweight, she was still reading and sorting letters, tapping her cheek lightly meanwhile with the official paper-knife. "Here, Mr. Ardmore," she said, drawing a paper from her pocket, "is the answer to that telegram we sent yesterday evening. Suppose you read that next, and we can then decide what to do." She was making the letters into little piles, humming softly meanwhile; but he felt that there was a storm brewing. He read the message from Columbia a number of times, and if the acting governor had not been so ominously quiet he would have laughed at the terse sentences.