destination of outgoing trains; weary mothers striving to soothe their
fretful children; the tumult raised by cabmen that were crowding
against the border-line of privilege; bells, shrieks, new harshnesses
here and there; confusion everywhere--a railway station in Chicago.

"The train ought to be here now," said George Witherspoon, looking at
his watch.

"Do you know exactly what train he is coming on?" his wife asked.

"Yes; he telegraphed again from Memphis."

"You didn't tell me you'd got another telegram."

"My dear, I thought I did. The truth is that I've been so rushed and
stirred up for the last day or so that I've hardly known what I was
about."

"And I can scarcely realize now what I'm waiting for," said a young
woman. "Mother, you look as if you haven't slept any for a week."

"And I don't feel as if I have."

George Witherspoon, holder of the decisive note in the affairs of that
great department store known as "The Colossus," may not by design have
carried an air that would indicate the man to whom small tradesman
regarded it as a mark of good breeding to cringe, but even in a place
where his name was not known his appearance would strongly have
appealed to commercial confidence. That instinct which in earlier life
had prompted fearless speculation, now crystalized into conscious