Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1903-12-22

at st. Joe. Well Wigglesworth never was
any good. They ought to have had more
sense than to get caught by him. Well,
Sir, you remember he was Offering his
paper up here. We could have had barrel
of it; but when a man of his credit peddles
his paper away from home, it's good thing
to let alone. When they figure up Wiggles-
worth's liabilities they will find that he has
paper scattered all over the Missouri val
ley. and I'll bet the Seconds stuck. The
last time l saw Wigglesworth he was up at
the club one day with Buskirk. He'd been
in to see me the day before. I guessed
then that he was looking for help which
they didn't think he was worth at home "
And then, with chuclile: Our people,
meaning his directors, think some times
we're too conservative, and l reckon 1 do
lose lot of business for them that other
fellows would take and get out of all right;
but l guess we make more In the long run
by being careful. Banking amt exactly
stove polish or vitalized barley, to put up
in pretty packages and advertise on the
bill boards
Wheaton was honestly sympathetic and
responsive along these lines. He admired
Porter, although he often felt that the
president made mistakes; yet he, too, be-
lieved in conservatism; it was q matter Of
temperament rather than principle. This
mingling of social and business elements
pleased and fattered Wheaton. He felt
that his position in the Porter bank gave
him a double footing in the Porter house.
Porter usually ignored Evelyn's presence
Then he would go back to his chair in the
library, where he could hear the voices
across the hall: but he never remained after
he had concluded his own talk with Wheat
on.
Sometimes, however when there were
other men in the house, Porter would come
and stand in the door and regard them
good-humorediy, and nod to them amiably,
usually with his cigar in his mouth and
the evening newspaper in his hand. When
there was a good deal of laughing he
would go over and gaze upon them ques-
tioningly and quiz them; but they usually
felt the restraint Oh his presence. If they
repeated to him some story which had
prompted their mirth, he was wont to re-
Duke them with affected seriousness. or
he would tell them story of his own He
expected Evelyn to receive great deal OF
attention. He liked to know who her callers
were and where she herself visited, and 1t
pleased him that she had called on all her
mothers old friends whether they had been
to see her or not He had a sense
of the dignities and proprieties Of
life, and he felt his own prestige as
a founder Of the town; it would
have been a source Of grief to him if Eve
lyn had not taken a leading place among
its young people.
The theater was the one diversion that
appealed to him, and he liked to take
Evelyn with him and wanted her to sit
in a box that he might show her off to
better advantage. He could not under
stand why she preferred seats in the or
chestra; Timothy Margrave and his
daughter always sat in a box, and young
men were forever running in to talk to
Mabel between the acts. Porter thought
that this showed special Difference to
the Margrave girl, as he called her, and
for her father too, by implication and he
resented anything that looked like a
slight upon Evelyn. He was afraid that
she did not entertain enough and since
the girls who visited them in the fall had
left he had been insisting that she must
have others come to see her. He had made
her tell him about all the girls she had
known in college; his curiosity in such
directions was almost Unsuitable. He al
ways demanded to know what their
fahers did for livelihood. and he had
been surprised to find that so many of
Evelyn's classmates had been daughters
of inconspicuous families, and that the
young women were in many cases fitting
themselves to teach. He had pretty thor
oughly catalogued all of Evelyn's college