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MR. JAMES SANDAGE, one-time overseer of the poor farm, now triumphantly elected trustee of Lane County by an overwhelming Republican majority, which the election returns invariably and uncritically present, was worried.

On this morning his daughter Beatrice Belle drove the new trustee from his new bungalow in Lanesburg to his office in the courthouse. As she manipulated the car she complained that there was a knock in the motor and begged her father in a discontented whine to buy a new automobile.

"I think we're lucky to have as fine a car as this, knock or no knock," said the new trustee absently.

"Makes me ashamed when I drive Adelaide Jones in it, havin' a knock. Now, lissen when I drive off."

Mr. Sandage's thoughts drifted in a slightly troubled, slightly disconnected fashion as his daughter drove away. . . . The car did have a knock. . . . Beatrice Belle certainly was getting grown. . . . When the railroad at Irontown paid its state and county taxes, he would have another seven thousand dollars with which he could assist his political godfather, Railroad Jones, in his new railway enterprise. Railroad paid him eight per cent. on these loans. . . . Eight per cent. on seven thousand . . . Sandage wondered if these investments were entirely safe?

He had heard a rumour that Perry Northcutt was beginning a suit to press Jones for the money the bank had lent him. He would ask Jones about that. The new trustee wanted to keep the county funds perfectly safe—also bearing eight per cent.—because that percentage was his own honorarium.