O'Neill stared at him, the gubernatorial cigar forgotten. "Oho!... You've met the Heths personally?" "I've met some of them personally, as you call it,--far as that goes." O'Neill, puffing again, digested this information speculatively. Presently he looked knowing and laughed. "Say, remember my saying to you, time you wrote that letter, that if you knew any of these yellow captains and horse-leeches' daughters personally, you'd feel mighty different--" "But I don't! I don't! You don't seem to get me at all, Sam. I've just shown that my position's exactly--" "They're a lot of Huns, and that's why they'll shell out thousands and modernize their plants just because you ask 'em?" The two men eyed each other again, O'Neill good-natured and rather triumphant. V.V., for his part, was smiling just a little sternly. "Sam," said he, "you thought I was a mad ass to write a letter a few months ago. Now time passes and you say I was quite right, and won't I please write you another in to-morrow's paper. This time, I tell you that a letter will only do harm--great harm--" "'Phone, Doctor!" bawled a husky young voice from below. "Aw, Doctor! 'Phone!" "All right, Tommy!" shouted Doctor. Rising to his height, he shot at O'Neill: "And once more you'll see I'm absolutely right! I don't change, my dear fellow, the simple reason being that I've got a guiding principle that doesn't change. I must answer that 'phone." "Well, I'll trot along with you. I've got to get on up the hill...." They headed together for the door. By reason of the prohibitory expense, Dr. Vivian had no telephone of his own, but through the courtesy of Meeghan's Grocery just across the street (which establishment was in receipt of medical attendance gratis), the initiate could always "get a message" to him. Commissioner O'Neill, at once puzzled and somewhat impressed by his friend's air of confidence, resumed conciliatively: "Now, jokin' aside, V.V., what's the proposition? D'you honestly think Heth can be made to clean up by your persuading his wife or daughter to ask him to? Is that it?--You met 'em at your uncle's reception, I s'pose?" But V.V.'s reserve had fallen, like a mysterious wall between. "You say you're at the end of your rope," said he, stepping with his long stride into the hall. "Well, suppose you give me a few months, that's all." The two friends descended the long stairs in silence. Vivian's meditations were rather tense. He recalled the hard words of the Severe Arraignment; he remembered the unforgivable speech he had made in the summer-house; before his mind's eye rose the moment in his uncle's lamplit den when he had told the girl to her face that her father was a homicide. Sacrificing natural inclinations to kindliness, he had done and said these things. And Sam O'Neill, knowing practically nothing of the facts in the case, had the nerve to stand up ...