Then he would settle himself back with an air of complacency, as if he had done all that he could do to arrest decay in the town; if his fellow citizens failed to rouse themselves it was not his fault. Margrave held no office in the Knights of Midas, but this was because he had learned by political experience that it was much simpler to lurk in the background and manipulate the men he placed in power. It was on this high principle that he built up the order of the Knights of Midas and directed its course from the office of the general manager of the Transcontinental. There was nothing incongruous to him in the annual ball, which was the only public social manifestation of the organization. It was he who directed that twenty members be chosen from the membership list each year, to conduct the purely social functions of the ball, and that these be taken in alphabetical order. Thus the Adamses and the Bakers and the Cummingses, who belonged in different constellations, found themselves in the same orbit. If they were unacquainted or were enemies of long standing, this did not trouble Margrave when the fact was brought to his notice. It was time, he said, that the people of Clarkson got together. "We may as well get some work out of Jim Wheaton," he remarked to the grand chief of the Knights of Midas. "He's pretty solemn, but Jim was solemn when he was a kid and worked for me. Porter and Thompson have always been too slow for this earth and if we pull Wheaton in, it may wake up the old chaps so they'll do something besides sit on the fence and watch the rest of us hustle." "See here," said Norton, the grand chief, "what's the matter with shoving him in for the king of the carnival? We've got to make a strong push this year to give tone to the show socially; that's the only way we can keep up the town interest. Having these jays come in from the country won't do any good unless we can hold these eminently respectable people who think they're Clarkson society." "You're dead right on that point," said Margrave; "that's a big card with the jays,--they think they come to town and get right in the push and are tickled to pay ten dollars a ticket for a taste of high life. I tell you what we'll do, we'll get Porter to let his daughter appear as queen of the carnival, and if that ain't a big enough jolly, we can make Wheaton king. That's what I'd call giving the Clarkson National a run for its money. If Porter don't double his subscription on the strength of that--" He looked at Norton and they both laughed. A few days later Margrave called on Wheaton at the bank. He was a little proud of having discovered Wheaton. Since his quondam messenger had become a bank cashier he had begun to take notice of him.