"Do you want to do me
that favor, or don't you?" I demanded.
"I'll do whatever you say," he replied. "I'm thinking only of your
interests."
"Let _me_ take care of _them_," said I. "You put me up at that
club to-morrow. I'll send you the name of a seconder not later than noon."
"Up goes your name," he said. "But don't blame me for the consequences."
And my name went up, with Mowbray Langdon's brother, Tom, as seconder.
Every newspaper in town published the fact, most of them under big black
headlines. "The fun's about to begin," thought I, as I read. And I was
right, though I hadn't the remotest idea how big a ball I had opened.
V
DANGER SIGNALS
At that time I did not myself go over the bills before the legislatures
of those states in which I had interests. I trusted that work to my
lawyers--and, like every man who ever absolutely trusted an important
division of his affairs to another, I was severely punished. One morning
my eye happened to light upon a minor paragraph in a newspaper--a list
of the "small bills yesterday approved by the governor." In the list was
one "defining the power of sundry commissions." Those words seemed to
me somehow to spell "joker.
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