“There are,” admitted the reporter, cheerfully, “other bright young creative artists on our staff. Well, I proceed to make your son a paragon--a clean-minded, decent, manly young millionaire.” “Which he is!” interjected Mr. Merriwether, sternly. “Of course! I know it. Have no fear on that score. I'd make him all that even if he wasn't. I proceed to draw attention--with a cleverness I'd call devilish if it wasn't my own--to the strange and, on the whole, agreeable vein of romanticism in the Merriwether nature. There you are, a hard-headed man of affairs, whose name the world associates with great engineering deeds and great high-finance misdeeds! You are--do you know what?--a poet!--a wonderful poet whose lines are of steel, whose numbers are of tonnage, whose song is chanted by the ten thousand purring wheels of your tireless cars.” “My car-wheels are lubricated. They don't purr,” mildly objected the railroad poet. “They do in my story,” said the reporter, firmly. “And to prove it I'll quote some striking lines from one of those unknown books we great writers always have on tap. Your romantic nature expresses itself in the creation of an empire in the alkali desert. You have written an epic on the map of America--in green!” “That sounds good to me,” said Mr. E. H. Merriwether, with the detached air of a critic of literature. He did not know just how to win this young man's silence--perhaps by letting him talk himself out of creative literature; perhaps by the inauguration of a molasses diet at once! “Thank you! Your son Tom's romance is in his unusual love-affair! This young man, the most eligible bachelor in the world--handsome, rich, a fastidious artist in feminine beauty, with a heart that has kept itself inviolate--pretty swell word that?--in-vi-o-late--all these years, opens at her sweet voice. We alone are able to announce the engagement. High society is more than interested--more than startled. As thinks society, so thinks the shop-girl; and there are fifty million of her. What society is incinerating itself with desire to find out is: To whom is Tom Merriwether engaged? Will our fair readers devour the article? I leave it to you, Mr. Merriwether!” The young man looked inquiringly at Mr. Merriwether. “I'd read it myself,” said Mr. Merriwether, very impressively. “I couldn't help it!” You could see that literature had triumphed over the stock-ticker. A great diplomatist was lost in a great money-maker.