his whole life, as he reviewed it in the waning afternoon, appeared empty and futile. It seemed hardly worth while to go on.
The Captain had come to that point in his memoirs where the Republican representative from Knox County had set going the petard which had wrecked his political career.
From the very beginnings of his labors the old lawyer had looked forward to writing just this period of his life. He meant to clear up his name once for all. He meant to use invective, argument, testimony and a powerful emotional appeal, such as a country lawyer invariably attempts with a jury.
But now that he had arrived at the actual composition of his defense, he sat biting his penholder, with all the arguments he meant to advance slipped from his mind. He could not recall the points of the proof. He could not recall them with Peter Siner moving restlessly about the room, glancing through the window, unsettled, nervous, on the verge of eloping with a negress.
His secretary's tragedy smote the old man. The necessity of doing something for Peter put his thoughts to rout. A wild idea occurred to the Captain that if he should write the exact truth, perhaps his memoirs might serve Peter as a signal against a futile, empty journey.
But the thought no sooner appeared than it was rejected. In the Anglo-Saxon, especially the Anglo-
