GEORGE HARPWOOD


CHAPTER I

CORKEY'S GOOD SCHEME

The courtly and affable George Harpwood has fought the good fight and
is finishing the course. It is he who has labored with the prominent
citizens. It is he who has moved the great editors to place David
Lockwin in the western pantheon--to pay him the honors due to Lincoln
and Douglas. It is Harpwood who has carried the banquet to success.
It is he who, in the midnight of Esther Lockwin's grief, prepared for
her confidential reading those long and scholarly essays of consolation
which she studied so gratefully. Mr. Harpwood did not put his
lucubrations in the care of Dr. Tarpion. Each and every one was
written for no other eye but Esther's.

While Dr. Tarpion was holding the husband at bay, Dr. Tarpion was
rapidly overcoming a prejudice against Harpwood.

"Really, the man has been invaluable to me," the administrator now
vows. "No one could deliberately and selfishly enter the grief-life of
such a widow."

For Harpwood, smarting with a double defeat, in the loss of Esther and
the election of Lockwin, has at once devoted himself to the saddest
offices. He has been diligent in all kinds of weather. He has
discreetly avoided the outer appearance of personal service. But he