directed bestowed great blessings. The majestic sweep of the large blades, revolving with the whim and caprice of passing winds; the creeking and labored motion of the crude machinery; the never ending flow of nectar from the bowels of Mother Earth, all combined were useful and impressive. With the changes of time and progress most of the wind mills so described have been dismantled. Irrigation and domestic water supply now come principally from gravity systems or electrically equipped stations. Notwithstanding this, some still continue in use; the great arms follow each other in the endless chain of evenly marked distance through circles of space. All this is waste energy. Not equipped with instinct, and having no mental capacity, these oldfashioned wind mills do not know that their days of usefulness are past. It is the same way with some men. Their mental works, if they ever had any, are gone. Intellectually they are dismantled, and the nonsense, or worse, which they work out of their system is as ineffectual as the revolving of the superceded wind mills."

Soon, very soon after Adamson had spoken The News editorial room closed for the night.

CHAPTER VIII.

Early hours, a childhood practice of compulsory regularity, had remained a part of the work day schedule of Uncle Orson. He usually arrived at his office in the big downtown building before the cleaning force was really willing to vacate, and it was no unusual thing for him to go up in the elevator with a watchman who had not yet been relieved by a regular operator.

All overtures for partnership relations made to him by retired judges, office holders who had quit the game to amass a fortune with past honors as a considerable asset, promising young men who sought strong professional connections, and favored corporation attorneys, all these had been politely declined for many years by this wonderful man. He surrounded himself with an array of bright men of all ages, who specialized in the various branches that constitute a general practice of the law such as he commanded. He paid liberally for their talents, and stimulated their best thought, effort and ability. A dozen names were upon the main entrance door of the Adamson suite, which was of necessity extensive and impressive. Not one of these assistants had a partnership relation. Many were continuing as attaches of the staff of the influential attorney, hoping the day would come when an associate proposition would crown their effort to earn such distinction.

One of the first men in the great city to acquire large wealth, had early in his career retained Adamson as general counsel. As the interests of the multi-millionaire grew, the legal requirements more than kept pace with them, and two hundred and fifty salaried attorneys of greater or lesser ability were finally on the pay roll. This small army of professional men was required to care for the trial, tax, real estate, construction, op

erating, title, appeal, security, banking, statistical, public policy, investment, employers' liability, political and legislative departments. So systematically was the office organized very little of the details of affairs came to the notice of Uncle Orson. With most remarkable regularity he sat at his big flat-top desk, quite removed from the atmosphere of activity and big business which prevailed throughout the entire floor of the thirteenth story occupied by his offices. Not one caller in a thousand entered the great room of plain, practical, oldfashioned arrangement, where the directing genius dwelt amid books of law and authorities, manuscripts, and important records, the contents of which his competitors would have given limitless sums to inspect. Their secrets were safe in the keeping of the man who had handled them to such purpose.

As a young man, he had traveled the quagmire of disappointment and sore trial. His progress had been slow, and only after surmounting continued obstacles. Not so hardy and resolute as his brother Addison, he had been a plodder from the first. A proletarian so far as available resources was concerned, he had applied himself the more resolutely to his task, and reward eventually came, as it does to men of mental endowment who pursue opportunity relentlessly. He had not been unctuated by a mysterious grace which simplified the great task undertaken. The anointing this man had profited by was a warmth of address, geniality of manner and pleasantness of speech, which gave charm to a big, frank, intellectual face, massive head and prematurely grey locks on top of broad shoulders that simply carried out the general masculine plan upon which the Nestor of the bar of the metropolis was built. There had been nothing of the modicum in the man, from the struggling days when he tried so hard for a foothold in his profession to the period of

his present admitted greatness. The content of his philosophy was reassuring, and an analysis of his digests always a marvel to brother practitioners. He appropriated few ideas of others for the important tasks before him. He was plainly original. No umbrage was ever taken or imagined by attorneys who appeared in opposition to him. His language was neoteric and appealed to the intelligence and undersanding of judge and jury. The introduction by him of up to date points of law, phrases and rulings of higher courts, frequently placed his opposing pleaders in embarrassing positions, which he never strove to take advantage of, to disconcert them, although the effect was like magic upon the presiding magistrates. He appeared to have at his command the salient and fundamental points of jurisprudence from primeval days to complications in the hands of the printers, not yet in the libraries of the most advanced exponents. The pleader who took a decisive, irrevocable position in opposition to the deductions of Uncle Orson was very likely to find he had crossed the Rubicon with his bridges burned and no avenue of escape open.

So great was his knowledge of constitutional law that a President of the United States had retained him to determine the status of that dignitary in certain complications controverted between Congress and himself. The word of Uncle Orson was accepted as final, and one of the most learned Secretaries of State who ever graced the position indorsed the interpretation as such after recommending that the opinion be obtained from this source. The State, through its accredited officials, dignified him with highest honors possible to bestow upon a man of learning. Colleges conferred degrees upon him, and generally speaking he was looked up to as the personification of honor, ability and mental endowment.

Norma L. Adamson, wife of Orson, was a not unusual type of woman though remarkable in many respects. She discharged her domestic obligations, of which there was no exacting number, in a gracious, even-tempered, acceptable way. Her husband consented most reluctantly and very infrequently to accompany her to social, musical or feastal furetions even of the most informal character. He found sufficient diversion in the immense library, just off the living room, on the first floor of their beautiful Fifth Avenue home. There after once settling down, he reclined in a big, easy chair, with table effect arms on either side, affording an opportunity to write and consult his books for hours at a time at his ease. The convenience of the lighting system, uniform temperature of the study, unfailing quietude, and the orderly arrangement of his books, manuscripts, and writing materials, did not, however, typify his method of home life. Far from it. Mrs. Adamson always found time, no matter how actively engaged in her outside world of gayety, to make this bid for the approval of Orson. Every evening when he started in upon his research and study in preparation for briefs or pleadings, there were absolute order and tidiness in his literary "work shop"-just as creditable to the genius of the ideal mistress of the house as the stateliness of the drawing room or the resplendence of the private apartments above.

The change brought about a few hours later by a perfectly tame, mild mannered, quiet man, seemingly resembled the havoc of a shrapnel attack. The crumpled debris of a half dozen or more evening newspapers; denuded interiors of law volumes that had fallen from imprudent heights where their interviewer had stacked