To it, in the comparative cool of the August evenings, came figures familiar in financial circles; such men as Magnelius Grandcourt, father of Delancy; and Remsen Tappan, and James Cray.
Others came and went, men of whom Duane had read in the newspapers--very great men who dressed very simply, very powerful men who dressed elaborately; and some were young and red-faced with high living, and one was damp of hair and long-nosed, with eyes set a trifle too close together; and one fulfilled every external requisite for a "good fellow"; and another was very old, very white, with a nut-cracker jaw and faded eyes, blue as an unweaned pup's, and a cream-coloured wig curled glossily over waxen ears and a bloodless and furrowed neck.
All these were very great men; but they and Colonel Mallett journeyed at intervals into the presence of a greater man who inhabited, all alone, except for a crew of a hundred men, an enormous yacht, usually at anchor off the white masonry cliffs of the seething city.
All alone this very great man inhabited the huge white steamer; and they piped him fore and they piped him aft and they piped him over the side.
Many a midnight star looked down at the glowing end of his black cigar; many a dawn shrilled with his boatswain's whistle.

He was a very, very great man; none was greater in New York town.
It was said of him that he once killed a pompous statesman--by ridicule: "I know who _you_ are!" panted a ragged urchin, gazing up in awe as the famous statesman approached his waiting carriage.
"And who am I, my little man ?" "You are the great senator from New York." "Yes--you are right.

_But_"-- and he solemnly pointed his gloved forefinger toward heaven--"but, remember, there is One even greater than I." Duane had heard the absurd lampoon as a child, and one evening late in August, smoking his after-dinner cigar beside his father in the empty conservatory, he recalled the story, which had been one of his father's favorites.
But Colonel Mallett scarcely smiled, scarcely heard; and his son watched him furtively.

The trim, elastic figure was less upright this summer; the close gray hair and cavalry mustache had turned white very rapidly since spring.

For the first time, too, in all his life, Colonel Mallett wore spectacles; and the thin gold rims irritated his ears and the delicate bridge of his nose.