Idealism and Pragmatism for Beginners

After "The Gilded Cage", Arthur Morgan receives a letter from Saint Denis mayor Henri Lemieux, who asks the man who robbed him at his party to visit the mayor's mansion after dark. John Marston can also answer the summons. Lemieux makes clear that he knows more about his visitor than he lets on, then asks for help with paintings he wants displayed at a gallery. Professor Shiftacre has declared them fraudulent. At the gallery, Arthur or John follows Shiftacre into an alley and forces him to withdraw his opinion, before meeting Lemieux's assistant, Jean-Marc, in the street.

A few days later, another letter calls Arthur or John back to Lemieux's mansion at night. Jean-Marc sends him after Hector Fellowes, a newspaper man travelling in a red stagecoach on a road near Bayou Nwa. He joins Fellowes in the moving coach and hears the journalist call Lemieux a crook. He answers that he is a real crook, then hauls Fellowes partly out of the coach until the frightened man agrees to contribute to the mayor's proposed public library.

Back at the mansion, Lemieux gives Arthur or John an old copy of "Farm, Field and Falconry" and says Jean-Marc may expose both of them to the newspapers. He finds Jean-Marc outside his home, knocks him unconscious, and carries him unseen to the mayor's grounds. In the backyard, Lemieux orders Jean-Marc killed. Arthur or John can carry out the order, after which Lemieux later sends thanks and grants a Saint Denis shop discount. If Jean-Marc is spared, he promises silence and flees; a later letter announces Lemieux's resignation and Jean-Marc's appointment as mayor.