of St. Eric's. It was a remarkable position to come the way of an
undergraduate, and his brilliant record at the seminary was one of the
two things which made it possible. The other was the friendship and
interest of his cousin, Carter Reed, head clerk in the law firm of Rush,
Walden, Lee and Lee, whose leading member, Judge Rush, was also senior
warden at St. Eric's. Reed had called Judge Rush's attention to his
young cousin's career, and, after some inquiry, the vestryman had asked
that the young man should be brought to see him, to discuss certain
questions bearing on the work. It was almost equivalent to a call coming
from such a man, and Reed was delighted; but here his troubles began. In
vain did he hopefully fix date after date with the slippery
Rex--something always interfered. Twice, to his knowledge, it had been
the chance of seeing a girl from Orange which had thrown over the chance
of seeing the man of influence and power. Once the evening had been
definitely arranged with Judge Rush himself, and Reed was obliged to go
alone and report that the candidate had disappeared into a tenement
district and no one knew where to find him. The effect of that was
fortunately good--Judge Rush was rather pleased than otherwise that a
young clergyman should be so taken up with his work as to forget his
interests. But Reed was most anxious that this evening's appointment
should go off successfully, while Rex was as light-hearted as a bird.
Any one would have thought it was Reed's own future he was laboring
over instead of that of the youngster who had a gift of making men care
for him and work for him without effort on his own part.

The two walked down Broadway toward the elevated road, Rex's dark eyes
gathering amusement here and there in the crowded way as they went.

"Look at Billy Strong--why there's Billy Strong across the street. Come
over and I'll present you, Carty. Just the chap you want to meet. He's a