"Can you
blame 'em?"
"I suppose," continued the Commissioner, slowly, as one carefully
pursues deductions from a new, stupendous theory, "not all of them are
tow-headed. It would not be unreasonable, Mr. Ashe, I conjecture, to
believe that a portion of them have brown, or even black, hair."
"Brown and black, sure," said Ashe; "also red."
"No doubt," said the Commissioner. "Well, I thank you for your
courtesy in informing me, Mr. Ashe. I will not detain you any longer
from your duties."
Later, in the afternoon, came Hamlin and Avery, big, handsome, genial,
sauntering men, clothed in white duck and low-cut shoes. They
permeated the whole office with an aura of debonair prosperity. They
passed among the clerks and left a wake of abbreviated given names and
fat brown cigars.
These were the aristocracy of the land-sharks, who went in for big
things. Full of serene confidence in themselves, there was no
corporation, no syndicate, no railroad company or attorney general
too big for them to tackle. The peculiar smoke of their rare, fat
brown cigars was to be perceived in the sanctum of every department of
state, in every committee-room of the Legislature, in every bank
parlour and every private caucus-room in the state Capital. Always
pleasant, never in a hurry, in seeming to possess unlimited leisure,
people wondered when they gave their attention to the many audacious
enterprises in which they were known to be engaged.
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