"
"Oh, we all do our best," James answered lightly. "But I'm
grateful for your good opinion. I hope I deserve it."
James could afford to be modest about his achievements so long as
Jeff was shouting his praises through the columns of the _World_
to a hundred thousand readers of that paper. What the shipbuilder
had said pleased him mightily. For Clinton Rogers was one of the
few substantial moneyed men of Verden who had joined the reform
movement. Not a single member of the Verden Club, with the
exception of Rogers, was lined up with those making the fight for
direct legislation. Even those who had no financial interest in
the Transcontinental or the public utility corporations supported
that side from principle.
James himself had thought a long time before casting in his lot
with the insurgents led by his cousin. He had made tentative
approaches both to Frome and to Edward B. Merrill. Both of these
gentlemen had been friendly enough, but James had made up his mind
they undervalued his worth. The way to convince them of this was
to take the field against them.
He smiled now as he swung along the avenue. Both Frome and Merrill
--yes, and Big Tim too, for that matter!--knew by this time
whether they had made a mistake in sizing him up as a raw college
boy with his eye teeth not cut.
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