incentive to give than the example that had been set--but that was all.
Quietly, with demure simplicity, Helena, prompted by Madison, like a
priestess who guards some holy, inner shrine, told them that sensational
notoriety had no place there--and the notoriety for that very cause
became the greater! Not that they were denied a sight of the Patriarch's
venerable and saintly form--they were permitted to catch glimpses of him
on the beach, on the lawn, walking with bowed head in meditation, a
figure whose simple majesty inspired words and columns of glowing
tribute--but from personal contact, Helena and the Flopper, always in
attendance, warded them off; retreating always to the privacy of the
cottage, to the inner rooms.

All this had taken four days; and now, on the fourth day, there came to
Needley the vanguard of those who sought this new healing power--just a
few of them, two or three, like far, outflung skirmishers evidencing the
presence of the army corps to follow. With the reporters, as far as
Madison was concerned, it was simple enough; he had but to let them go
their way, to let them revel in the stories that were on every tongue,
to let them view with their own eyes _facts_, while he, modestly and
diffidently, full of quiet earnestness, effaced himself, never thrusting
himself forward, talking to them only when they pressed him--but the
handling of the sufferers who would flock to Needley in response to a
newspaper publicity and endorsement that had been beyond his wildest
dreams, was quite another matter. Madison viewed the first
arrivals--brought in from the station on cot beds to the Waldorf
Hotel--and retired to his room in the Congress Hotel to wrestle with the
niceties and minutiæ of the problem.

"You see," said Madison to the tip of his cigar, as he tilted back his
chair and extended his legs full length with his heels comfortably up on