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So, when it came to the structure of the building, the contractor ordered the architect to save expense in every line of the details. The woodwork was cut to the thinnest veneer; partitions, even bearing-walls, were made of the cheapest studding the market offered; the large floors were hung from thin outside walls, without the brick bearing-walls provided by the architect. When Hart murmured Graves said frankly:

"This ain't any investment proposition, my boy. I calculate to fill the Graveland in two months, and then I'll trade it off to some countryman who is looking for an investment. Put all the style you want into the finish. Have some of the flats Flemish, and others Colonial, and so on. Make 'em smart."

The architect tried to swallow his disgust at being hired to put together such a flimsy shell of plaster and lath. But Cook, who had been trained in Wright's office, where work of this grade was never accepted, was in open revolt.

"If it gets known around that this is the style of work we do in this office, it 'll put us in a class, and it ain't a pleasant one, either. . . . Say, Jack, how's this office to be run, - first-class or the other class?"

"You know, man," the architect replied, "how I am fixed with Graves. I don't like this business any better than you do, but we'll be through with it before long."

He growled in his turn to the contractor, who received his protest with contemptuous good humor.

"You'd better take a look at what other men are doing, if you think I am making the Graveland such an awful cheap building. I tell you, there ain't money in the other kind. Why, I worked for a man once who put up a first-class flat building, slow-burning construction, heavy woodwork, and all that. It's oldfashioned by this time, and its rents are way down. And I saw by the paper the other day that it was sold at the sher

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Therefore the architect dismissed the Graveland from his mind as much as he could, and saw little of it while it was under construction, for the contractor did his own superintending. One day, however, he had occasion to go to the building, and took his wife with him. They drove down the vast waste of Grand Boulevard; after passing through that wilderness of painful fancies, the lines of the Graveland made a very pleasant impression.

Hart had induced Graves to sacrifice part of his precious land to an interior court, around which he had thrown his building like a miniature château, thus shutting out the sandy lots, the ragged street, which looked like a jaw with teeth knocked out at irregular intervals. A heavy wall joined the two wings on the street side, and through the iron gates the Park could be seen, just across the

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"Show me what you mean," Helen

demanded.

He turned to the entrance and kicked

open the door. His wife's face was pale He pointed out to her some of the de- and set, as if she could not dismiss the matter thus lightly.

vices used to skimp the building.

"Even the men at work here know it. You can see it by the way they look at

me.

Why, the thing is a paper box!"

In some of the apartments the rough work was scarcely completed; in others the plasterers were at work; but the story was the same everywhere.

"I can't see how he escaped the Building Department. He's violated the ordinances again and again. But I suppose he's got the inspectors in his pay!"

He remembered the Canostota: he had no manner of doubt, now, about those I-beams in the Canostota!

"Francis!" Helen exclaimed with sudden passion; "you won't stand it! You won't let him do this kind of thing?"

The architect shrugged his shoulders. "It's his building. He bought the plans and paid for them."

She was silent, troubled in her mind by this business tangle, but convinced that some wrong was being done. A thing like this, a fraud upon the public, should be prevented in some way.

"Can't you tell him that you will report him to the Building Department?" she asked finally.

Hart smiled at her impetuous unpracticality.

"That would hardly do, would it, to go back on a client like that? It's none of my business, really. Only one hates to feel that his ideas are wasted on such stuff as this is made of. The city should look after it. And it's no worse than most of these flat buildings. Look at that one across the street. It's the same cheap thing. I was in there the other day. . . . No, it's the condition of things in this city, the worst place for good building in the country. Every one says So. But God help the poor devils who come to live here, if a fire once gets started in this plaster-and-lath shell!"

"I never thought of fire!" she murmured. "Francis, if anything like that should happen! To think that you had drawn the plans!"

"Oh! it may last out its time," he replied reassuringly. "And it does n't affect the appearance of the building at present. It's real smart, as Mrs. Rainbow would think so, say. Don't you Nell?"

She had turned her back to the pleasant façade of the Graveland, and was staring into the Park across the street. She turned around at his words and cast a swift, scrutinizing glance over the building.

"It is n't right! I see fraud looking out of every window. It's just a skeleton covered with cloth."

The architect laughed at her solemnity. He was disgusted with it himself; it offended his workman's conscience. But he was too modern, too practical, to allow merely ideal considerations to upset him. And, after all, in his art, as in most arts, the effect of the thing was two thirds the game. With her it was altogether different. Through all outward aspect, or cover, of things pierced their inner being, from which one could not escape by illusion.

As they were getting away from the building, the contractor drove up to the Graveland for his daily inspection. He came over to the architect, a most affable smile on his bearded face.

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And he promised lightly enough, for he thought it highly improbable that the contractor ever would return to him, or that he should feel obliged to take his work if he offered it.

Nevertheless, the contractor did return to the office, and not long afterwards. It was toward the end of the summer, when the architect and his wife were still debating the question of taking a house in the country for the winter. One afternoon Hart returned from his luncheon to find Graves waiting for him in the outer office. The stenographer and Cook were hard at work in the room beyond, with an air of having nothing to say to the contractor. As Graves followed Hart into his private office, Cook looked up with a curl on his thin lips that expressed the fullness of his heart.

room,

"Say," Graves called out as soon as Hart had closed the door to the outer "I sold that Graveland a month ago, almost before the plaster was dry. A man from Detroit came in to see me one morning, and we made the deal that day."

He sat down more firmly in the chair opposite Hart's desk, and he began to describe his scheme. There was to be a double row of houses, three stories and basement, each one different in style, in a different kind of brick or terra cotta, with a distinguishing "feature" worked in somewhere in the design. They were to be bait for the thrifty clerk, who wanted to buy a permanent home on the installment plan rather than pay rent. There were many similar building schemes in different parts of the city, the advertisements of which one might read in the street cars.

"Why do you want me to do the job?" Hart asked at last. "Any boy just out of school could do are after."

what you

"No, he could n't. He has n't the knack of giving a fresh face to each house. It won't be hard work for

you!"

This, the architect knew, was very true. It would be very easy to have Cook hunt up a lot of photographs from French and English architectural journals, which, with a little arrangement, would serve. With a few hours' work he could turn out that individual façade that Graves prized commercially. Here was the large job that could be done easily and

"Is that so ? Hart remarked coolly. "It was a pretty building. I knew I should n't have any trouble with it. Now I have something new in mind." Hart listened in a non-committal man- roughly, ready to hand.

ner.

"Part of that trade with the Detroit feller was for a big block of land out west here a couple of miles. I am thinking of putting up some tidy little houses to sell on the installment plan."

"What do you mean to put into them?" the architect asked bluntly.

"Well, they'd ought to sell for not more than eight thousand dollars."

"And cost as much less as you can make them hold together for? I don't believe I can do anything for you, Mr. Graves," the architect replied firmly.

"Is that so? Well, you are the first architect I ever saw who was too busy to take on a paying piece of business."

"I don't like to have such work go. through the office. That's all there is about it!" he exclaimed at last.

"Tony, eh? Well, we won't fight over that. Suppose you make the sketches and let another feller prepare the de-tails?"

There were many objections to this mode of operation, but the contractor met every one. Hart himself thought of Van Meyer, a clever, drunken German, to whom he had given work now and then when the office was busy. He would do what he was told and say nothing about it. . .

...

It was late when Graves left the of-fice. Cook and the stenographer had

already gone. Hart went down into the street with the contractor, and they nodded to each other when they parted, in the manner of men who have reached an understanding. On the way to the train, Hart dropped into his club for a drink. He stood staring into the street while he sipped his gin and bitters. The roar of the city as it came through the murky windows seemed to him more than commonly harsh and grating. The gray light of the summer evening filtered mournfully into the dingy room. . . . He was not a weak man; he had no qualms of conscience for what he had made up his mind that afternoon to do. It was disagreeable, but he had weighed it against other disagreeable alternatives which might happen if he could not get the money he needed. By the time he had reached Shoreham he had entirely adjusted his mind to Graves, and he met his wife, who had walked over to the station, with his usual buoyant smile. And that evening he remarked :

...

"I guess we had better take the Loring place. It's the only fit one for rent. We'll have to keep a horse,—that's all."

They had been debating this matter of the Loring house for several weeks. It was a pleasant old house, near the lake, not far from Mrs. Phillips's in Forest Park. It was Mrs. Phillips who had first called the architect's attention to it. But, unfortunately, it was too far from either station of the railroad to be within walking distance. And it was a large establishment for two young persons to maintain, who were contemplating the advent of a baby and a nurse.

All this Helen had pointed out to her husband, and lately they had felt too poor to consider the Loring place.

"What has happened, Francis?" she asked.

"A lot more business has come in, houses. They will be very profitable," he answered vaguely, remembering Helen's antipathy to the contractor. "Did you lunch with Venetia?"

XI.

The Lady Venetia de Phillips, as the young woman used to call herself in the doll age, had never set foot in a common street car, or, indeed, in anything more public than a day coach on the Forest Park suburban train; and in that only because the C. R. & N. had not found it profitable to provide as yet a special coach for her class. Mrs. Phillips, who had known what it was to ride in an Ottumwa buggy, comfortably cushioned by the stout arm of an Ottumwa swain, understood the cardinal principle of class evolution, which is separation. She had educated her children according to that principle.

So it happened shortly before Mrs. Phillips had taken possession of her new home that Miss Phillips, having to pay a visit on the North Side of the city, was driving in her mother's victoria, in digBeside nity, according to her estate. her sat her favorite terrier, Pete, scanning the landscape of the dirty streets by which they were obliged to pass from the South to the North Side. Suddenly as the carriage turned a corner, Pete spied a long, lank wharf rat, of a kind that did not inhabit his own neighborhood. The terrier took one impulsive leap between the wheels of the victoria, and was off up Illinois Street after the It was a good race; the Lady Venetia's sporting blood rose, and she ordered the coachman to follow. Suddenly there dashed from an alley a light baker's wagon, driven by a reckless youth. Pete, unmindful of the clattering wagon, intent upon his loping prey, was struck full in the middle of his body: two wheels passed diagonally across him, squeezing him to the pavement like an india-rubber ball. He dragged himself to the sidewalk, filling the street with hideous howls. The passers-by stopped, but the reckless youth in the baker's wagon, having leaned out to see what

rat.

damage had been done, grinned, shook his reins, and was off.

Before the coachman had brought the victoria to a full stop Venetia was out and across the street. Pete had crawled into an alley, where he lay in a little heap, moaning. When his mistress tried to gather him into her skirt he whimpered and showed his teeth. Something was radically wrong! The small boys who had gathered advised throwing Pete into the river, and offered to do the deed. But Venetia, the tears falling from her eyes, turned back into the street to take counsel with the coachman. A young man who was hurrying by, swinging a little satchel and whistling to himself, stopped.

"What's up?" he asked, smiling at the girl's tears.

Venetia pointed at the dog, and the stranger, pushing the small boys aside, leaned over Pete.

"Gee! He's pretty well mashed, ain't he? Here, Miss, I'll give him a smell of this and send him to by-by."

He opened his little satchel and hunted for a bottle. Venetia timidly touched his arm.

"Please don't kill him!"

"That's just what I'm going to do, sure thing! He paused, with the little vial in his hand, and looked coolly at the girl. "You don't want the pup to suffer like that?"

"But can't he be saved?"

The stranger looked again at Pete, then back at Venetia. Finally he tied a handkerchief over the dog's mouth, and began to examine him carefully.

"Let's see what there's left of you after the mix-up, Mr. Doggie. We'll give you the benefit of our best attention and skill, - more 'n most folks ever get in this world, because you are the pet of a nice young lady. If you were just an alley-cat you would n't even get the chloroform. Well, Miss, he'd have about one chance in a hundred, after he had that hind leg cut off."

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NO. 557.

24

"Could you cure him? Mamma will be very glad to pay you for your services."

"Is that so?" the stranger remarked. "How do you know that my services don't come very high? Well, come on, pup! We'll see what can be done for you."

west.

Drawing the improvised muzzle tighter, he gathered Pete up in a little bundle. Then he strode down the street to the The coachman drew up beside the curb and touched his hat. "Won't you get in?" Venetia asked. "It's only a step or so to my place," he answered gruffly. "You can follow me in the carriage."

But she kept one hand on Pete, and walked beside the stranger until he stopped at an old, one-story, wooden cottage. Above the door was painted in large black letters, "S. COBURN, M. D. PHYSICIAN AND SURGEON."

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timidly.

"Sure! Why would I keep you sit ting on the doorstep?"

Inside there was a little front room, apparently used as a waiting-room for patients. Back of this was a large bare room, into which the doctor led the way. It occupied all the rest of the cottage. A wooden bench extended the entire length of this room, underneath a row of rough windows, which had been cut in the wall to light the bench. Over in one corner was a cot, with the bedclothes negligently dragging on the floor. Near by was an iron sink. On a table in the centre of the room, carefully guarded by a glass case, was a complex piece of mechanism which looked to the girl like one of the tiresome machines her teacher of physics was wont to exhibit.

"My laboratory," the doctor explained somewhat grandly.

Venetia stepped gingerly across the dirty floor, glancing about with curiosity. The doctor placed the dog on the

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