Ottumwa tri-weekly courier. [volume] (Ottumwa, Iowa) 1903-1916, 1913-11-25
CHAPTER RI.

IN the ripple Ln2C SClrreQ ACROSS Cnd
court room at the examiners abrupt
conclusion, John Valiant, who had
withstood that pitiless hail Of. ques.
tons. rose. bowed to him and slowly
crossed the cleared space to his coun-
sell The chairman looked severely
over his eyeglasses, with his gavel
lifted. and a statutesque girl. in the
rear Of the room, laid her delicately
gloved hand on companions and
smiled slowly without withdrawing
her gaze. and with the faintest tint
of color In her face
Katharine Fargo neither smiled nor
flushed readily. Her smile was an in
dex OF her whole personality, languid,
symetrical, exquistely perfect. The
little group with whom she sat looked
some what out of place in that mixed
assemblage. They had not grasped
at the tale of the Corporations unpre-
cedented earnings, the lavish expendi-
ture for It's palatial offices. The re-
cital Of the tragic waste, the nepotism
the mole-like ramifcations by which
the vast structure had been under
mined, had left them rather amusedly
and satirically appreciative. Smartly
groombed and palpably members Of a
set to whom John Valiant was IA
maliar. they had had only friendly
mods for the young man at whom SO
many had gazed with jahndiced eyes.
To the general public which read
it's daily newspaper perhaps none Of
the gilded set was better known than
Vanity Valiant" The very nick
name-given him by his fellows In
facetious allusion to flippant news
paperparagraph laying at his door the
alleged new fashion Of a mas culine
vanity box-had taken root in the
fads and elegancies he affected. The
new Panhard he drove was the smart
est car on the avenue, and the collar
on the white bulldog that pranced or
dozed on tits leather seat sported a
diamond buckle. To the space writer's
Of the social columns, he had been a
perennial inspiration. They had de.
lighted to herald more or less DO.
hemian gathering, into which he had
smuggled this pet, as "dog-dinner:"
and when one midnight after a staid
and stodgy "nridge," in gust Of wild
spirits he had, for wager, jumped
into and out of fountain on de-
serted s"uare. the act, dished up by
"A .night-hawking reporter, had the fol.
loving Sunday, inspired three metro
politan sermons on "The Idle Rich. :"
The patterns of his waistcoats, and
the splendors of his latest bachelors
dinner at Snerry's--with such items
the public had been kept sufficiently
familiar To it. he stood a perfect
symbol Of the elder ease and insolent
display of inherited wealth. And the
great majority Of those who had found
place in that roomy chamber to listen
to tie ugly tale OF squandered mil
lions looked at him with a resent
,nent that was sharpened by his ap-
parent nonchalance.
For the failure Of the concern upon
which a legislature had now turned
the searchlight Of it's inquiry, might
to him have been thing of trivial in
terest, and the present task an alien
one. which he must against his will
20 through with. Often his eyes had
wandered to the window. through
which came the crisp cliptrip-clop Of
the cab horses on the asphalt. the ir-
ritant purr Of motors. Only once had
this seeming Indifference been shaken
when the figures of the salary voted