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By Booth Tarkington

Condensation by CLARENCE W. BARRON THE Sheridan Building was the biggest skyscraper, the Sheridan Trust Company the biggest bank, and Sheridan himself the biggest builder and broker and truster and buster under the smoke of a dirty and wonderful midland city that piled tower on tower and spread itself out over the plain of a fair country. Bibbs Sheridan was his "odd one," the family failure. He grew up only lengthwise, and at twenty-two was the dry scaffolding of a man. Six months in his father's pump-works made necessary two years in a sanitarium. He returned to the "new house" on the outskirts of the city in time for the housewarming party. To this came Mary Vertrees, whose family next door maintained the highest air of respectability upon a vanishing fortune. She came under home promptings that led her to dazzle with her wit and beauty both Sheridan and James Sheridan, Jr.