The papers that had been filed in the case disclosed a somewhat different situation, which was fully laid before the public, greatly to its surprise. It appeared that William Porter owned all the bonds of the company, and only narrowly missed the stock control. The situation was thoroughly interesting. A contention between Porter and Margrave was novel in the history of Clarkson and the press made the most of it. The _Gazette_, Margrave's paper, proved him to be wholly in the right, and cited the summary action of the court in appointing an inexperienced man to the receivership as another proof of the brutal abuse of power by federal courts. Margrave had put none of his own money into Traction stock, but had invested funds belonging to the stockholders of the Transcontinental, who had every confidence in his sagacity, and who trusted him implicitly. He advised them of the receivership in terms which led them to believe that he had brought it about as a part of his own plans. He maintained an air of mystery and winked knowingly at friends who joked him about the little _coup_ by which Porter, though sick in bed, had, as they said, "cleaned him up." He told those who flattered him by twitting him on this score that he guessed Tim Margrave hadn't lost his grip yet, and that before he was knocked out, the place of eternal damnation would have been transformed into a skating rink. CHAPTER XXX GREEN CHARTREUSE There is a common law of character which is greater than the canons. It fills many volumes of records in the high court of Experience, and we add to it daily by our instinctive decisions in small matters; but only the finer natures, highly endowed with discernment, master its intricacies. The decalogue is a safe guidepost on the great highway of life; but it does not avail the lost pilgrim who stumbles in remote by-paths. The spirit is the only arbiter of the nicer distinctions between right and wrong. James Wheaton did not steal; he would do no murder; he was not even unusually covetous. If the tests which Destiny applied to him had related to the great fundamentals of conduct, he would not have been found wanting; but they were directed against seemingly unimportant weaknesses, along the lines of his least resistance to evil.