Ariel and Ladew and the Squire were already seated and waiting.  “Aren’t you going to ride home with us?” she asked, surprised.

“No,” he explained, not looking at her.  “I have to talk with Norbert Flitcroft.  I’m going back with him.  Good-bye.”

His excuse was the mere truth, his conversation with Norbert, in the carriage which they managed to secure to themselves, continuing earnestly until Joe spoke to the driver and alighted at a corner, near Mr. Farbach’s Italian possessions.  “Don’t forget,” he said, as he closed the carriage door, “I’ve got to have both ends of the string in my hands.”

“Forget!” Norbert looked at the cupola of the Pike Mansion, rising above the maples down the street.  “It isn’t likely I’ll forget!”

When Joe entered the “Louis Quinze room” which some decorator, drunk with power, had mingled into the brewer’s villa, he found the owner and Mr. Sheehan, with five other men, engaged in a meritorious attempt to tone down the apartment with smoke.  Two of the five others were prosperous owners of saloons; two were known to the public (whose notion of what it meant when it used the term was something of the vaguest) as politicians; the fifth was Mr. Farbach’s closest friend, one who (Joe had heard) was to be the next chairman of the city committee of the party.  They were seated about a table, enveloped in blue clouds, and hushed to a grave and pertinent silence which clarified immediately the circumstance that whatever debate had preceded his arrival, it was now settled.

Their greeting of him, however, though exceedingly quiet, indicated a certain expectancy, as he accepted the chair which had been left for him at the head of the table.  He looked thinner and paler than usual, which is saying a great deal; but presently, finding that the fateful hush which his entrance had broken was immediately resumed, a twinkle came into his eye, one of his eyebrows went up and a corner of his mouth went down.

“Well, gentlemen?” he said.

The smokers continued to smoke and to do nothing else; the exception being Mr. Sheehan, who, though he spoke not, exhibited tokens of agitation and excitement which he curbed with difficulty; shifting about in his chair, gnawing his cigar, crossing and uncrossing his knees, rubbing and slapping his hands together, clearing his throat with violence, his eyes fixed all the while, as were those of his companions, upon Mr. Farbach; so that Joe was given to perceive that it had been agreed that the brewer should be the spokesman.  Mr. Farbach was deliberate, that was all, which added to the effect of what he finally did say.

“Choe,” he remarked, placidly, “you are der next Mayor off Canaan.”

“Why do you say that?” asked the young man, sharply.

“Bickoss us here,” he answered, interlocking the tips of his fingers over his waistcoat, that being as near folding his hands as lay within his power,—­ “bickoss us here shall try to fix it so, und so hef ditcided.”