River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1914-01-29
CHAPTER II.
Vanity Valiant.

The witness is excused.
In the ripple that stirred across the
court room at the examiners abrupt
conclusion, John Valiant, who had
withstood that pitiless hail of Ques-
tions, 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 statuesque girl, in the
rear of the room, laid her delicately
gloved hand on a companions and
smiled slowly without withdrawing her
gaze, and with the faintest tint of col
or in her face.
Katharine Fargo neither smiled nor
flushed readily. Her smile was an in
dex of her whole personality, languid,
symmetrical, exQuisitely perfect. The
little group with whom she sat looked
somewhat out of place in that mixed
assemblage. Smartly groomed and
palpably members of a set to whom
John Valiant was familiar, they had
had only friendly mods and smiles for
the young man at whom SO many there
had gazed with iaundiced eyes.
To the general public which read it's
daily newspaper perhaps none OF the
giIded set was better known than
Vanity Valiant" The new Panhard
he drove was the smartest car on the
avenue, and the collar on the white
bulldog that pranced or doZed on it's
leather seat sported diamond buckle.
To the spacewriters of the social col
umns, he had been a perennial insplra-
ton The patterns of his waistcoats,
and the splendors of his latest bache-
lors dinner at Sherry's-with such
items the public had been kept suffi-
GENTLY familiar. To it, he stood per-
feet symbol of the elder ease and in
solent display of inherited wealth.
And the great majority of those who
had found place in that roomy cham
Der to listen to the ugly tale of squan-
dered millions. looked to him with a
resentment that was sharpened by his
apparent nonchalance.
Long before the closing session it
had been clear that, as far as lndict-
ments were concerned the investiga-
ton would be barren of result. OF
individual criminality, fight and sui
eide had been confession, but more
sweeping charges could not be brought
home. The gilded fool had not brought
himself into the embarrassing purvieW
of the law.
p
The jostling crowd f1ocked out into
the square, among them a fresh-faced
girl on the arm of a gray-bearded man
in black frock coat and picturesque
broad-brimmed felt hat. She turned
her eyes to his.
$50 that" she said, is John Valiant!
I'd almost rather have missed Niagara
Falls. l must write Shirley cambridge
about it. I'm so sorry / lost that
picture of him that l cut out of the
paper"
Il reckon he's not such a bad lot,
said her uncle. He hailed cab.
Grand Central Station" he directed,
with glance at his watch, land be
quick about it, We've just time to
make our train"
y
Some hours later in an inner ONCE
of downtown sky-scraper, the newly
appointed receiver of the Valiant Cor
poration q heavy, thick-set man with
narrow eyes, sat beside a table on
which lay small black satchel with
a paddock on its handle, whose con-
tents-several bundles of crisp papers
he had been turning over in his
heavy hands with look of incredu-
lous amazement. A sheet containing
a mass of figures and memoranda lay
among them
The shock was still on his face when
knock came at the door, and a man
entered The newcomer was gray
haired slightly stopped and lean
jowled, with humorous expression on
his lips. He glanced in surprise at
the Uttered table.
Fargo" said the man at the desk,
do you notice anything queer about
me?"
His friend grinned. "No, Buck" he
said judicially, unless it's that neck
tie 1t would stop Dutch clock"
Hang the haberdashery, Read this
from young Valiant" He passed
over a letter.