Margrave, it appeared, was not to have full swing after all. He was to be president, but John's visitor intimated broadly that the position was to be largely honorary. They had looked into the matter thoroughly in New York and were anxious that the policy and methods of the receivership should continue. Mr. Margrave was an invaluable man, said the New Yorker, but his duties with the railroad company had so multiplied that he would be unable to give the necessary care to the street car management. John should have absolute authority. The syndicate would be greatly disappointed if he declined. A salary was named which was larger than John had ever dreamed of receiving in any occupation; and they wished an answer within a few days. John Saxton was human, and it was not easy to decline a salary of six thousand dollars for services which he knew he could perform, offered to him by a gentleman whom people were not in the habit of refusing. He remained indoors at the club all day, smoking many pipes in a fruitless effort to reconcile his resolves with his new problems. The next day he thought he saw it all more clearly. Perhaps, he reflected, life in Boston would become endurable; there was his sister to consider, and he owed something to her; she was all he had. He went out and walked aimlessly through the hot streets, little heeding what he did. He realized presently that he had gone into a railway office and asked for a suburban time table. He carried this back to the club, where the atmosphere of his cool, quiet room soothed him; and he lay down on a couch and studied the list of Orchard Lane trains. He found that he could run out almost any hour of the day. He slept and woke refreshed, with the time table still grasped in his hand. He had been very foolish, he concluded; it would be a simple matter to go out to Orchard Lane to call on the Porters and Whipples, and he picked out one of the afternoon trains and marked it on the folder with a lead pencil. He spent the evening writing letters,--in particular a letter to the representative of the Clarkson Traction syndicate, declining the general managership; and the next afternoon when he went up to Orchard Lane he carried the letter sealed and stamped in his pocket, as a kind of talisman that would assure his safety. It suited his righteous mood that he should find no one at home at Red Gables but Mr. Porter, who played golf all the morning and slept and experimented at landscape gardening all the afternoon. He welcomed John with unwonted cordiality, in the inexplicable way people have of being friendlier with a fellow townsman away from their common habitat than at home. He led the way to a cool and cozy corner of the broad veranda, where Japanese screens made a pleasant nook. The afternoon sea shimmered beyond the trees; the lawn was tended with urban care. Porter was very proud of the place and listened with approval to John's praise of it. "Well, sir; it's cooler than Clarkson."