The beginning of this eminence dated back to the days before the Empire, when there were many little principalities of railroads fighting among themselves.  For we are come to a changed America.  There was a time, in the days of the sixth Edward of England, when the great landowners found it more profitable to consolidate the farms, seize the common lands, and acquire riches hitherto undreamed of.  Hence the rising of tailor Ket and others, and the leveling of fences and barriers, and the eating of many sheep.  It may have been that Mr. Vane had come across this passage in English history, but he drew no parallels.  His first position of trust had been as counsel for that principality known in the old days as the Central Railroad, of which a certain Mr. Duncan had been president, and Hilary Vane had fought the Central’s battles with such telling effect that when it was merged into the one Imperial Railroad, its stockholders —­to the admiration of financiers—­were guaranteed ten per cent.  It was, indeed, rumoured that Hilary drew the Act of Consolidation itself.  At any rate, he was too valuable an opponent to neglect, and after a certain interval of time Mr. Vane became chief counsel in the State for the Imperial Railroad, on which dizzy height we now behold him.  And he found, by degrees, that he had no longer time for private practice.

It is perhaps gratuitous to add that the Honourable Hilary Vane was a man of convictions.  In politics he would have told you—­with some vehemence, if you seemed to doubt—­that he was a Republican.  Treason to party he regarded with a deep-seated abhorrence, as an act for which a man should be justly outlawed.  If he were in a mellow mood, with the right quantity of Honey Dew tobacco under his tongue, he would perhaps tell you why he was a Republican, if he thought you worthy of his confidence.  He believed in the gold standard, for one thing; in the tariff (left unimpaired in its glory) for another, and with a wave of his hand would indicate the prosperity of the nation which surrounded him,—­a prosperity too sacred to tamper with.

One article of his belief, and in reality the chief article, Mr. Vane would not mention to you.  It was perhaps because he had never formulated the article for himself.  It might be called a faith in the divine right of Imperial Railroads to rule, but it was left out of the verbal creed.  This is far from implying hypocrisy to Mr. Vane.  It was his foundation-rock and too sacred for light conversation.  When he allowed himself to be bitter against various “young men with missions” who had sprung up in various States of the Union, so-called purifiers of politics, he would call them the unsuccessful with a grievance, and recommend to them the practice of charity, forbearance, and other Christian virtues.  Thank God, his State was not troubled with such.

In person Mr. Hilary Vane was tall, with a slight stoop to his shoulders, and he wore the conventional double-breasted black coat, which reached to his knees, and square-toed congress boots.  He had a Puritan beard, the hawk-like Vane nose, and a twinkling eye that spoke of a sense of humour and a knowledge of the world.  In short, he was no man’s fool, and on occasions had been more than a match for certain New York lawyers with national reputations.