glad.  If anything could have convinced Roberts that success can come in public life to a man who pursues it by honest methods it was the success of James Rossmore.  He could never help feeling that Rossmore had been endowed by Nature with certain qualities which had been denied to him, above all that ability to walk straight through life with skirts clean which he had found impossible himself.  To-day Judge Rossmore was one of the most celebrated judges in the country.  He was a brilliant jurist and a splendid after-dinner speaker.  He was considered the most learned and able of all the members of the judiciary, and his decisions were noted as much for their fearlessness as for their wisdom.  But what was far more, he enjoyed a reputation for absolute integrity.  Until now no breath of slander, no suspicion of corruption, had ever touched him.  Even his enemies acknowledged that.  And that is why there was a panic to-day among the directors of the Southern and Transcontinental Railroad.  This honest, upright man had been called upon in the course of his duty to decide matters of vital importance to the road, and the directors were ready to stampede because, in their hearts, they knew the weakness of their case and the strength of the judge.

Grimsby, unconvinced, returned to the charge.

“What about these newspaper charges?  Did Judge Rossmore take a bribe from the Great Northwestern or didn’t he?  You ought to know.”

“I do know,” answered the senator cautiously and somewhat curtly, “but until Mr. Ryder arrives I can say nothing.  I believe he has been inquiring into the matter.  He will tell us when he comes.”

The hands of the large clock in the outer room pointed to three.  An active, dapper little man with glasses and with books under his arm passed hurriedly from another office into the directors room.

“There goes Mr. Lane with the minutes.  The meeting is called.  Where’s Mr. Ryder?”

There was a general move of the scattered groups of directors toward the committee room.  The clock overhead began to strike.  The last stroke had not quite died away when the big swinging doors from the street were thrown open and there entered a tall, thin man, gray-headed, and with a slight stoop, but keen eyed and alert.  He was carefully dressed in a well-fitting frock coat, white waistcoat, black tie and silk hat.

It was John Burkett Ryder, the Colossus.

CHAPTER II

At fifty-six, John Burkett Ryder was surprisingly well preserved.  With the exception of the slight stoop, already noted, and the rapidly thinning snow-white hair, his step was as light and elastic, and his brain as vigorous and alert, as in a man of forty.  Of old English stock, his physical make-up presented all those strongly marked characteristics of our race which, sprung from Anglo-Saxon ancestry, but modified by nearly 300 years of different climate and customs,