I sipped my morning coffee and listened to Sarah's talk. Beyond business, what was there for me? There was our place down in Vermilion County, Illinois. But stock-farming was an old man's recreation. I might become a collector like Mr. Dround, roaming about Europe, buying old stuff to put in a house or give to a museum. But I was too ignorant for that kind of play. And philanthropy? Well, in time, perhaps when I knew what was best to give folks, which isn't as simple as it might seem. "I am sorry the Drounds couldn't come," Sarah was saying, glancing at Jane's note to her. "I liked Jane better yesterday than ever before--she looked so worn and kind of miserable. I don't believe she can be happy, Van." "Well, she didn't say so!" I replied.... Yes, I knew Senator Parkinson--a sly, tricky politician, for all his simple farmer ways. He was not what is called a railroad Senator, but the railroads never had much trouble with him.... Before we had finished our breakfast Carmichael sent up word that he must see me, and I hurried down to the lobby of the hotel. He met me at the elevator and drew me aside, saying abruptly:-- "The old man is dead! Just got a wire from Chicago--apoplexy. I must get back there at once." Strauss dead! The news did not come home to me all at once. His was not just like any other death. From the day when the old packer had first come within my sight he had loomed big and savage on my horizon, and around him, somehow, my life had revolved for years. I hated him. I hated his tricky, wolfish ways, his hog-it-all policy; I despised his mean, unpatriotic character. Yet his going was like the breaking of some great wheel at the centre of industry. I had hated him, and for that reason I had refused all offers to settle on anything but a cash basis for my interests in the companies he was buying from us. Carmichael and some others had urged me again and again to go in with them and help them build the great merger, but I had steadily refused to work with Strauss. "I cannot make a good servant," I had said to John, "and I don't want a knife in my side. The country is big enough for Strauss and me. I'll give him his side of the pasture." But now he was dead, and already, somehow, my hate was fading from my heart. The great Strauss was but another man like myself, who had done his work in his own way. Carmichael, who was a good deal worked up, exclaimed:-- "This won't make any hitch in our negotiations, Harrington. Everything will go right on just as before. The old man's plans were laid pretty deep, and this deal with you is one of the first of them. His brother Joe will take his place, maybe, and if he can't fill the shoes, why, young Jenks, who seems to be a smart young man, or I will take the reins."