his interests from the depredations of a gang of political
grafters, and that it had been a sensational fight while it
lasted. This item was duly jotted down in the reportorial memory.

Alaska was a hard country, quite so, but nothing like Mexico
during the revolution. Mexican sugar and mahogany, it transpired,
had occupied Mr. Gray's attention for a time, as had Argentine
cattle, Yucatan hennequin, and an engineering enterprise in
Bolivia, not to mention other investments closer to home.

Once the speaker had become reconciled to the distasteful
necessity of talking about himself, he suggested an adjournment to
his rooms, where he would perhaps suffer less embarrassment by reason
of his unavoidable use of the personal pronoun.

Gray noted the effect upon his visitor of the Governor's suite and
soon had the young man at ease, with a Corona between his teeth.
Then followed a full three-quarters of an hour, during which the
visitor discoursed in his very best style and his caller sat
spellbound, making occasional hieroglyphic hen tracks upon his
note paper and congratulating himself upon his good luck in
striking a man like this in one of his rare, talkative moods. Gray
had set himself deliberately to the task of selling himself to
this gentleman of the press, and, having succeeded, he was enough
of a salesman to avoid the fatal error of overselling.

Alone at last, a sardonic grin crept over his features. So far, so
good. Now for the rest of those bankers and the mayor. Gray was
working rapidly, but he knew no other way of working, and speed
was essential. It seemed to him not unlikely that delay of the