for Needley--and the red-haired, sorrowful-faced man in the Needley
station grew haggard, tottered on the verge of collapse, and, between
the sheafs of flimsy that the reporters fought for the opportunity of
pushing at him, wired desperately for a relief.

Needley awoke and came to life--as from the dead. There was bustle,
activity, and suppressed and unsuppressed excitement on every hand--the
Waldorf Hotel once more opened its doors--the Congress Hotel was already
full.

The reporters interviewed everybody with but one exception--the
Patriarch.

They interviewed Madison--and Madison talked to them gravely, quietly, a
little self-deprecatingly, a little abashed at the thought of personal
exploitage.

"I wouldn't be interviewed at all," he told them, "if it were not that
mankind at large is entitled to every bit of evidence that can be
obtained. Yes; I gave what I could afford, but it was Holmes, a poor
man, who gave most of all--have you seen him? Myself? What does that
matter? I am unknown, my personality, unlike Mr. Thornton's, can carry
no weight. I am, I suppose, what you might call a rolling stone, a world
wanderer. My parents left me a moderate fortune, and I have travelled
pretty well and pretty constantly all over the world during the last
twelve or fifteen years. How did I come to Needley? Well, you can call
it luck, or something more than that, whichever way it appeals to you. I
was feeling seedy, a little off-color, and I started down for a rest and
lay-off in Maine. I happened to ask a man in Portland if he knew of a
quiet place. He meant to be humorous, I imagine. He said Needley was the