impressive chairs, the great majestic table portentously suggestive of power. Presto! the dim calm is broken; the air vibrates as when an ancient church is invaded by a swarm of vampire-bats. Into the great room enter a group of men and a flock of youths, who settle in the impressive chairs round the majestic table. You wonder what is the motive of the assemblage. These grave lawyers, whose names are weighty in the nation's councils, and these gray-haired, dignified financiers might well be gathered to arbitrate a dispute involving empires; but why these office-boys and clerks, with their restless, surprised eyes and uneasy gestures? The flourishing of papers, the murmuring of voices in a confusion of "seventy-five million," "we buy," "we sell," "we are," "we will"—words, nothing but words; then silence as one reads from a stiff parchment certain resolutions which the suave gentleman with incisive steel-clicking manners, at the head of the table, puts to a vote. Then these youths, whose souls are afire with the hope of a director's $5 gold fee, timidly sign the record, trembling the while lest a blot call down on them a scolding; a head clerk, whose fondest dream is a raise of salary as the result of coming under the Master's eye in a seventy-five-million-dollar deal, affixes a seal, and there is an exchanging of thin slips of paper—checks—dollars—magically "made dollars." Exit office-boys and lawyers.
The door closes—silence again. Then the air vibrates with the sound of a hearty hand-slap and the genial, whole-souled greeting of the "Master" to his partner. "William, I feel as though I had done an honest day's labor! Thirty-six million dollars 'made' and no hitch, no delay!" Then follows the partner's mild answer: "Yes, Harry, but don't forget James' and the others' shares will shrink it up quite a bit."
Thirty-six million dollars for one honest day's labor! Thirty-six million dollars—and Alaska cost us but seven millions and Spain relinquished to us her claims on the Philippines for only twenty millions. Thirty-six million dollars!—more than a hundred times as much as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and "Abe" Lincoln together secured for the