The house was crowded with an army of servants, attendants, musicians, singers, entertainers and reporters.

The doctor had been recognized by one of the butlers whom he had befriended on his arrival from the Old World. The grateful fellow had gone out of the way to make him at home, and in his enthusiasm had put an alcove which opened off the ball room at his and Harriet's disposal.

The doctor was elated at this evidence of Bivens's good feeling and again congratulated himself on his common sense in coming.

Bivens led Stuart to a position near the grand stairway, from which he could greet his guests as they returned from their formal presentation to the hostess.

He kept up a running fire of biographical comment which amused Stuart beyond measure.

"That fellow, Jim," he whispered, as a tall finely groomed man passed and touched his hand, "that fellow is as slick a political grafter as ever stole the ear-rings from the sleeping form of a fallen angel. He levies blackmail on almost every crime named in the code. But you can't prove it in court and he's worth millions. His influence on legislation is enormous and he can't be ignored. He's one of the kind who like this sort of thing, and he goes everywhere. Money is power. No matter how you get it. Once gotten, it's divine. Call the man a thief and grafter if you will, but the laws of centuries protect him. There are no rights now except property rights. I'd like to kick him out of the house. I'd as lief a toad or a lizard touched my wife's hand, but he's here to-night, well, because I'm afraid of him."

Stuart nodded.

"Yes. I tried to send the gentleman to the penitentiary last year."

"But you didn't even get in speaking distance of him, did you?"

"No, and----"

"You bet you didn't; he's a lawyer himself."

"I thought he smiled when he shook hands."

"You remember that old Latin proverb we used to get off at college? I was punk in Latin, but I never forgot that--'_Harus pex ad harus picem_' when one priest meets another it's to smile! The lawyers are the high priests of the modern world. Only the women support the church."

"At least we can thank God there are only a few such men who force their way into decent society."

"I guess you are right," Bivens answered, "and he couldn't do it by the brute power of his money only. He has brains and culture combined with the daring of the devil. Still, Jim, most of the big bugs who come here to-night live in glass houses and have long ago learned that it don't pay to throw stones."

A titled nobleman passed, and Bivens winked.

"The poor we have with us always!"

Stuart smiled and returned at once to the point.

"Just what did you mean by that last remark about glass houses?"

"Simply this, old man, that all these high-browed society people who turn up their noses behind my back and marvel at my low origin and speak in bated whispers about my questionable financial strokes--all have their little secrets. For my own comfort I've made a special study of great fortunes in America. The funny thing is that apparently every one of them was founded on some questionable trick of trade."

"Not every one, surely."

"In my study of the subject I ran across a brilliant young Socialist by the name of Gustavus who has devoted his life to the study of the origin of these fortunes. He has written a book about them. I have read it in manuscript. It will fill four volumes when completed. Honestly I've laughed over it until I cried. For instance, speaking of the devil, here comes Major Viking. His people are no longer in trade. Such vulgarity is beneath them. He comes here because I'm supposed to be worth a hundred million and belong to the inner circle of the elect.

There are less than two dozen of us, you know."

"Delighted to greet you, Major. My old friend and college mate, James Stuart."

The proud head of the house of Viking grasped Stuart's hand and gave it a friendly shake. His manner was simple, unaffected, manly and the bronzed look of his face told its story of life in the open.

"Not our distinguished young district attorney whom the politicians had to get rid of?" he asked in tones of surprise and pleasure.

"The very same," Bivens answered gravely.

The Major gripped Stuart's hand a second time.

"Then I want to shake again and offer you my congratulations on the service you have rendered the Nation. It's an honour to know you, sir."

Stuart was too much amazed at such a speech to reply before the tall figure had disappeared.

Bivens pressed his arm.

"That's why I could afford to pay you a million a year."

"You don't mean to say that _his_ fortune is streaked with the stain of fraud?" Stuart asked, in low tones.

"Certainly. Personally, he's a fine fellow. He's a big man and lives in a big world. His fortune is not less than two hundred million, securely salted down in gilt-edged real estate, most of it. But the original fortune was made by fraud and violence in the old days of colonial history. The elder Viking was a furrier. The fur trade was enormously profitable. Why? Because the whole scheme was built on the simple process by which an Indian was made drunk and in one brief hour cheated out of the results of a year's work. His agents never paid money for skins. They first used whiskey to blind their victims and then traded worthless beads and trinkets for priceless treasures of fur. And on such a foundation was the great house founded."

"It's incredible."

"The facts have been published. If they were not true the publisher could be driven out of business. The Vikings maintain a dignified silence. They have to do it, but softly, here is the head of the house of Black Friday. Everybody knows about his father's sins. Yet he was the friend and comrade of the great who were canonized while he was cannonaded. Good fellow, too, all the same breed when you come right down to it, only some of them have the genius for getting away with the goods and saving their reputations at the same time."

"For instance?" Stuart asked.

Bivens craned his neck toward the stairs.

"There's one of them, now, one of the great railroad kings, not one of your Western bounders, but the real Eastern, New York patriotic brand, one of the brave, daring pioneers who risked all to push great transcontinental railroads through the trackless deserts of the West--with millions furnished by the government--which they dumped into their own pockets while the world was shouting their praises for developing the Nation's resources."

"My friend, Mr. James Stuart, Mr. Van Dam."

It was with difficulty that the young lawyer kept his face straight during those introductions.

Van Dam bowed with grave courtesy, and when he was beyond the reach of Bivens's voice the little dark biographer went on:

"Old Van Dam, the founder of the house, whose palaces now crowd Fifth Avenue, was a plain-spoken, hard-swearing, God-fearing, man-hating old scoundrel who put on no airs, but simply went for what he wanted and got it. He was the first big transportation king we developed. His fortune was founded on the twin arts of bribery and blackmail. The lobby he maintained in secret collusion with his alleged rivals in Washington while he was working his subsidy bills through Congress was a wonder, even in its day. He and his rival with two gangs of thieves publicly lobbying against each other met in secret and divided the spoils when the campaign was over. If a real rival succeeded in getting a Government subsidy for a transportation line in which he had no share, his procedure was always the same; he began the construction or equipment of a rival line until they bought him off by a big payment of monthly blackmail. His income from blackmail alone was frequently more than a million a year. His sons are fine fellows and doubled the old man's millions in bigger, cleaner ways, as I've doubled mine. But it gives me a pain when these men begin to nose around; inquiring about my early history."

"Well, Cal," Stuart broke in with a laugh, "the one thing I like about you is that you have never been ashamed of your humble origin."

"Still I'm not without my weak spot, even there, Jim," the little man said, with an accent of pain that startled Stuart.

"What do you mean?"

"You see that bunch of newspaper reporters over there? They are the ghosts that haunt my dreams. Oh, not what they'll say in their dirty papers. We can control that, we own them. But there's a magazine muckraker among them. He has nosed his way in here to-night as a reporter, for some devilish purpose. He has been down in North Carolina, moving heaven and earth to find my poor old father and mother and get under my hide with a biographical sketch. He has written a volume of lies about them already--but list, here's another one of the great ones you must know, old Grantly, the proud possessor of a fortune made in the services of the Nation for the nominal consideration of fifty per cent. profit, a typical Civil War nabob."

Bivens bowed with exaggerated courtesy to the great man, introduced him and said with a quiet sneer:

"The kind that makes me really sick is the patriotic poser. I suppose it was because my dad wasn't a very brave soldier." He laughed quietly.

"Remember the day you knocked those brutes down at college for forcing me to make a speech in praise of my father's heroism? I could have died for you that day, Jim."

"Oh, that was nothing," Stuart protested lightly.