so had the Lossing Art Furniture Works. It was after Harry Lossing
had disappointed his father. This is not saying that he had
done anything out of the way; he had simply declined to be
the fourth Harry Lossing on the rolls of Harvard College.
Instead, he proposed to enter the business and to begin
by learning his own trade. He was so industrious, he kept
at it with such energy that his first convert was his father--
no, I am wrong, Mrs. Carriswood was the first; Mrs. Lossing was
not a convert, SHE had believed in Harry from the beginning.
But all this was years before Mrs. Carriswood's visit.

Another of Master Harry's notions was his belief in the necessity
of his "meddling"--so his father put it--in the affairs of the town,
the state, and the nation, as well as those of the Lossing
furniture company. But, though he was pleased to make rather cynical
fun of his son's political enthusiasm, esteeming it in a sense
a diverting and therefore reprehensible pursuit for a business man,
the elder Lossing had a sneaking pride in it, all the same.
He liked to bring out Harry's political shrewdness.

"Fancy, Margaret," says he, "whom do you think Harry has brought
over to our side now? The shrewdest ward politician in the town--
why, you saw him when he was a boy--Tommy Fitzmaurice."

Then Mrs. Carriswood remembered; she asked, amused, how was Tommy
and where was he?

"Tommy? Oh, he went to the State university; the old man was
bound to send him, and he was more dutiful than some sons.
He was graduated with honors, and came back to a large,