were permitted to do that. If his good friends of the Anaconda who had
come so far in his honor--a mark of regard which he, Senator Hanway,
could never forget nor underestimate--gave him their company to the
Capitol, he would be proud to make them acquainted with Senators Gruff
and Loot and Toot and Drink and Dice and others of his friends, and
those gentlemen would go more deeply into the affair. The President and
General Attorney, he was sure, could so exert the Anaconda influence
that the delegations from those States through which it ran might be
selected and controlled.

Senator Hanway and the President and General Attorney departed in high
good feeling to meet with those statesmen named, while Richard sought
Bess to hear word of his Dorothy and receive that letter which was
already the particular ray of sunshine in days which were cloudy and
dark.

It would do mankind no service to break in at this place with wideflung
descriptions of Mr. Gwynn's dinner. It is among things strange that the
world in the matter of proposing a candidate for public favor or
celebrating a victory has made little or no advance from earliest ages.
It has been immemorial custom when one had a candidate on his hands and
desired to obtain for him the countenance of men, to give a dinner for
those who were reckoned leaders of sentiment and, first filling them
with meat and wine, make them stirring speeches to bring them to the
candidate's support. From the initial dinner sub-dinners would radiate,
and others be born of these, until a whole population might be
considered fed and filled with food and speeches, and the candidate
dined, not to say dinned, into the popular heart, or, what is the same
thing, the popular stomach--in either case the popular regard. In
celebrations the procedure was equally archaic. Did some admiral win a
sea fight or some general a land fight or some candidate a ballot fight,
instantly one-half the population marched in the middle of the street
while the other half banked the curbs in screaming, kerchief-waving
lines of admiration. And thus has it ever been since that far-distant
morning of Eternity, when Time with his scythe let down the bars and
went upon his mowing of the meadows of men's existences. Mr. Gwynn, you
may be sure, has nothing novel to propose; wherefore at this crisis he
gives a dinner, as doubtless did Nero and Moses and Noah and Adam and
others of the mighty dead on similar occasions in their day.

Mr. Gwynn's dinner began with Senator Gruff. This wise man, with the
sanction of Senator Hanway, intimated to Richard the uses of such a
festival. Mr. Gwynn was not in politics; his dinner table would be
neutral ground. When therefore some fiery orator, carefully primed and
cocked, suddenly exploded into eloquent demands that Senator Hanway
offer himself for the White House, subject of course, as the phrase is,
to the action of his party's convention thereafter to assemble, it would
have a look of spontaneity that was of prime importance. No other could
do this so well as Mr. Gwynn; no other table would so escape that charge
of personal interest which the friends of Governor Obstinate might be
expected to make. The very fact of Mr. Gwynn being an Englishman would
defend it. Mr. Gwynn, at the word of Richard, was willing to serve the
views of Senator Gruff, and the dinner was arranged.

There were full sixty present, including Speaker Frost and those high
officials of the Anaconda. Mr. Gwynn had also dispatched an invitation
to Mr. Bayard, and Richard inclosed therewith a personal note which had
for its result the bringing of that astrologer of stocks, albeit dinners
political were not precisely his habit.

"Who is your friend Gwynn?" asked Mr. Bayard, the afternoon before the
dinner.

"I'll explain Mr. Gwynn later," replied Richard. "He is quite devoted to
my interests, I assure you, and to nothing else."

"I can well believe so," returned Mr. Bayard, who had already half
solved the enigma of Mr. Gwynn. "I begin to fear that you are a
quixotic, not to say an eccentric, not to add a most egotistical young
man. At that I'm not prepared to say you are wrong. One is justified in
extreme concealments to avoid those animals the snobs."

Mr. Gwynn, the picture of all that was imperial, sat at the table's
head, with Senator Hanway on his right. At the foot was Senator Gruff,
who, if not the founder, might be called the architect of the feast,
since, with the exception of Mr. Bayard, he had pricked off the list of
guests. Mr. Harley, sad and worn with thoughts of Storri, sat next to
Senator Gruff, while Mr. Bayard and Richard occupied inconspicuous
places midway of the board.

When in the procession of courses the dinner attained to birds, a famous
editor of the Middle West, who had been consuming wine with diligence to
the end that he be fluent, addressed the table's head. He recited the
public interests; then, paying a tribute to their party as the guardian
of those interests, he wound up in words of fire with the declaration
that Senator Hanway must be the next standard-bearer of that party. The
cheering was tremendous, considering the small numbers to furnish it.

When the joyful sounds subsided, Senator Hanway, in a few placid, gentle
sentences, explained his flattered amazement, and how helplessly he was
in the hands of his friends, who would do with him as they deemed best
for party welfare and for public good. He had not sought this honor, he
did not look for the nomination; his own small estimate of his powers
and importance, an estimate which gentlemen who heard him must be aware
of, was proof of it. But no man might set his inclinations against a
popular demand. Private preferences must yield, private plans must be
abandoned. The country was entitled to the services of every citizen,
the party was at liberty to command the name of every member. Believing
these things, and owing what he did to both public and party, Senator
Hanway must acquiesce. He thanked his friends for thus distinguishing
him; he gave himself passively to their will. There was a second tempest
of approbation when Senator Hanway was through.

Senator Gruff proposed the health of the President of the Anaconda. That
potentate of railways made a short, jerky oration. He gave his hearty
concurrence to the proposal of Senator Hanway to be President. He did
this as a patriot and not as the head of a great railway. The Anaconda
would take no part in politics; it never did. The Anaconda was a
business, not a political, concern; it would do nothing unbecoming a
corporation of discretion and repute. However, he, the President, was
more or less acquainted with sentiment in those regions threaded by the
Anaconda. He made no doubt, nay, he could squarely promise, that the
delegations from those States, as he knew and read their people's
feeling, would go to the next convention instructed for Senator Hanway.
More applause, and a buzz of congratulatory whispers. The powerful
Anaconda, that political dictator of a region so vast that it was washed
by two oceans, was to champion Senator Hanway.

Senator Coot, whose home-State was shaky beneath his Senate feet, and
who was therefore anxiously afraid lest he himself be committed to a
position on the perilous subject of finance that might provoke his
destruction, now addressed the table. He yielded to no one in his
admiration for Senator Hanway. In view of what had been proposed,
however, he, Senator Coot, would like to ask Senator Hanway to define
his position in that controversy of Silver versus Gold.

No one was looking for this, no such baleful curiosity had been
anticipated. It was Senator Gruff that came to the rescue, and Richard,
to whom the scene was new and full of interest, could not admire too
deeply the dexterity wherewith he held the shield of his humor between
Senator Hanway and the shaft of that interrogatory.

Senator Gruff thought the question premature. The convention was months
away; sentiment had been known to shift in a day like the bed of a river
and seek new channels with its currents. Senator Gruff distrusted the
wisdom of binding anybody at that time to a hard and fast declaration
whether for silver or gold or both. He was sure that on soberer thought
his friend Senator Coot would see the impropriety of his question.

Senator Coot declined to see the impropriety to which Senator Gruff had
adverted. To commit himself to any gentleman's canvass was to commit
himself to that gentleman's opinions. Those opinions might not be
consistent with ones held by his, Senator Coot's, constituents, to whom
he must in all things adhere. He, Senator Coot, was no one to buy pigs
in pokes--if Senator Hanway would forgive a homely expression which was
not intended as personal to himself. Senator Coot must insist upon his
question.

Senator Gruff still came forward in defense. He said he had heard that
Senator Coot's native State of Indiana was originally settled by people
who had started for the West but lost their nerve. In view of the
timidity and weak irresolution of his Senate brother, he, Senator Gruff,
was inclined to credit the tradition. He must protest against
question-asking at this time. Senator Gruff must even warn his friend
Senator Coot that to ask a question now might result in later disaster
to himself.

On that point of question-putting, might he, Senator Gruff, impart a
word of counsel? A question was often a trap to catch the questioner.
One should step warily with a question. A man who puts a question should
never fail to know the answer in advance. When he pulls the trigger of a
question, as when he pulls the trigger of a gun, he must look out for
the kick. Many a perfect situation had been destroyed by the wrong
question asked in the dark. Senator Gruff begged permission to tell a
story.

"Once a good and optimistic dominie," said Senator Gruff, "was being
shown through Sing Sing Prison. In his company went a pessimist who took
darkling views of humanity in the lump, and particularly what fractions
of the lump had gotten themselves locked up. The pessimist could see no
good in them.

"'But you are wrong,' argued the dominie. 'There's good in the worst
among them all. Stay; I'll prove it.' Then, turning to the guard: 'Sir,
please bring us to the very worst character who is prisoner here.' On
their way to the abandoned one, the dominie observed to the pessimist:
'I'll guarantee, by a few adroit questions, to so develop the good side
of this fallen creature that you will be driven to confess its
existence.'

"They traveled the corridors, and finally the guard threw open a cell
wherein was a man whose face was so utterly brutal that its softest
expression was a breach of the peace. The man, who was in for life, had
committed an atrocious murder.

"The only thing in the cell besides the man was a rat, which--wheel
within wheel--was confined in a little cage. This rat was the prisoner's
darling; the guard said that he would draw blood from his arm to feed
it. The good dominie--who knew his business--instantly seized upon the
rat for his cue.

"'And you love the rat?' he said to the prisoner.

"'I love it better than my life!' cried the prisoner. 'There isn't
anything I wouldn't sacrifice for that rat.'

"'There,' said the good dominie, wheeling on the pessimist, who was
visibly subdued by the poor prisoner's love for his humble pet, 'there,
you see! Here is a captive wretch whose estate is hopeless. He wears the
brand of a felon and is doomed to stone-caged solitude throughout his
life. And yet, without friends or light or liberty, with everything to
sour and harden and promote the worst that's in him, he finds it in his
heart to love! From those white seed which were planted by Providence in
the beginning that beautiful love springs up to blossom in a dreary
prison, and, for want of a nobler object, waste its tender fragrance on
a rat. It touches me to the heart!' and the good dominie watered the
floor of the cell with his tears.

"The pessimist had no more to say; he murmured his contrition and
declared that he had received a lesson. He would never again distrust or
contradict the existence of that spark of divine goodness which, at the
bottom of every nature like a diamond at the bottom of a pit, would live
quenchless through the ages to save the soul at last.

"The good dominie and the reformed pessimist were retiring, when the
dominie paused, like Senator Coot, to ask one question--the only one he
couldn't have answered in advance.

"'Why, my poor man, do you love that rat?'

"The prisoner's face became more brutal with the light of a diabolical
joy.

"'Why do I love him?' he cried. Then, with a chuckle of fiendish
exultation: 'Because he bit the warden.'"

The adroit Senator Gruff might have found it hard to show the
application of his story. That, however, was not going to worry the
sagacious Senator Gruff. He reckoned only upon raising a laugh at the
anxious Senator Coot's expense which would silence that question-asking
personage, who was more afraid of present ridicule, being sensitive,
than of future condemnation by his constituents. The yarn succeeded in
winning peals of laughter, and without giving Senator Coot a chance to
reply or repeat his poking about to discover the position of Senator
Hanway upon the issue of finance, Senator Gruff proposed the health of
Mr. Bayard.

"And perhaps," remarked Senator Gruff, "that eminent authority on
markets, and therefore upon finance, will favor us with his views on
money. I do not hesitate," concluded Senator Gruff, turning to Mr.
Bayard, "to cast you into the breach, because, of all who are here, you
are the one best qualified and, I might add, least afraid to be heard.
You have no constituents to be either shocked at your opinions or to
punish their expression."

Senator Coot's curiosity touching Senator Hanway's money position, a
fatal curiosity that had it not been smothered might have spread, was
overwhelmed in a general desire to hear Mr. Bayard. The great speculator
was known to every statesman about the table, and the whisper of
conversation became hushed.

"As said the gentleman who has so honored me,"--here Mr. Bayard bowed to
Senator Gruff, who complimented him by lifting his glass,--"there are no
reasons why I should not give you my beliefs of money. I will tell you
what I would and would not do for a currency, if I were business manager
of a country. I would not coin silver money, because the low intrinsic
value of such currency would make it a cumbrous one. I would not coin
both silver and gold, because of the impossibility of maintaining an
equality of values between the two coins. I would coin gold and nothing
but gold, because it offers those qualities, important above others in a
money metal, of high value and high durability."

"But is there gold enough to furnish all the money required?" asked
Senator Coot, who was nervously interested.

"For centuries," replied Mr. Bayard, who began to feel a warmer interest
than he had in any situation or any topic for over thirty years, "for
centuries production has been filling the annual lap of the world with
millions upon millions of gold. No part of it has been lost, none
destroyed. For every possible appropriation there exists a plenty, even
a plethora, of gold. And let me say this: there is a deal of claptrap
talked and written and printed and practiced concerning this business of
a currency, a subject which when given a right survey presents no
difficulty. Mankind has been taught that in the essence of things fiscal
your question of currency is as intricate and involved as was the
labyrinth of Minos. And then, to add ill-doing to ill-teaching, our own
crazy-patch system of finance has been in every one of its patches cut
and basted and stitched with an interest of politics or of private gain
to guide the shears and needle of what money-tailor was at work. A
country, if it would, could have a circulating medium, and all coined
yellow gold, of two hundred dollars, or five hundred dollars, or one
thousand dollars per capita for population, and, beyond the expense of
the mint, without costing that country a shilling. One, being business
manager of the nation, as fast as the mints would work could pour forth
an unbroken stream of gold money, half-eagles, eagles, and double
eagles, to what breadth and depth for a whole circulation one would, and
never spend a shilling beyond the working of the mints.

"Observe, now; as a nation we have a business manager. He holds in his
fingers five twenty-dollar gold pieces. He buys one hundred dollars'
worth of gold bullion with them. The public, if it would, might buy gold
as freely as does any private individual. Our business manager gets the
bullion, while the other, a gold miner perhaps, takes the gold coin.
Then our business manager stamps the bullion he has bought--one hundred
dollars' worth--into five new twenty-dollar gold pieces.

"With these in his palm he is ready for another bargain with the gold
miner. Again the miner gets the gold pieces, and again our business
manager gets one hundred dollars' worth of yellow bullion. This he
coins; and being thereby re-equipped with five more new twenty-dollar
pieces he returns to the experiment.

"This barter and this coinage might go on while a grain of the world's
gold remained uncoined. At the finish, our business manager would have
only one hundred yellow dollars in his fist; but there would be billions
coined and stamped and in circulation. And the country would be neither
in nor out a dollar. I am talking of coinage, not taxation, remember.

"Once in circulation the law would protect the money from being clipped
or mutilated or melted down. Once money, always money, and he who alters
its money status we lock up as a felon. There is no legal reason and no
moral reason and no market reason to militate against what I have
outlined as a policy. Finance as a science is simpler than the science
of soap-boiling, although the money-changers in the temple for their own
selfish advantage prefer you to think otherwise."

"Your wholesale consumption of gold," interrupted Senator Coot, "would
raise the price of gold beyond measure."

"Wherein would lie the harm? So that it did not disturb the comparative
prices of soap and pork and sugar and flour and lumber and on through
the list of a world's commodities--and it would not--no one would
experience either jolt or squeeze. With wheat at a dollar a bushel, a
reduction to ten cents a bushel would work no injury if at the same time
every other commodity in its price fell ninety per cent. To merely
multiply the 'price' of gold, a metal which when it isn't money is
jewelry, would cut no more important figure in the economy of life than
would the making of one thousand marks upon a thermometer where now we
make one hundred. Suppose, instead of one hundred degrees, we scratched
off one thousand degrees on a thermometer in the same space: would it
make the weather any hotter? I grant you a cautious business manager
would not walk in among the gold-sellers and purchase ten billion
dollars' worth of gold in a day; and for the same reason that a cautious
cowboy wouldn't ride in among a bunch of cattle and flap a blanket. Not
because there lurks inherent peril in so doing, but for that in the
timid ignorance of the herd it would produce a stampede."

"But don't you see," objected Senator Coot, who was learned in the cant
of currency and believed it, "don't you see that what you propose, by
putting up the price of gold and putting down the price of everything
else, would multiply riches in the hands of the creditor class? Wouldn't
it work injustice to the debtors of the land?"

"Without pausing to guess," said Mr. Bayard, "for that is all one might
do, whether the extravagant coinage of gold would promote its 'price,' I
will submit that such contention should be disregarded. It is too
general, and too incessant. If such were permitted the rank of argument,
it would trip up every tariff, every appropriation, every governmental
thing.

"Also, one must not put a too narrow limit upon the term 'creditor
class.' Every man with a dollar in his pocket, or who owns a farm or a
horse or a bolt of cloth or one hundred bushels of wheat, belongs to the
extent of that dollar or farm or horse or bolt of cloth or one hundred
bushels of wheat to the creditor class. The world is his debtor, and he
has it in pawn and pledge to him for the value of that dollar or farm or
horse or cloth or wheat. Now, a tariff law can be and frequently is
framed so as to lift or lower the 'prices' of all or any of these. If
your argument be good it should be just as potent to prevent a tariff
law that augments riches in one hand or detracts from riches in another,
as to prevent a coinage law that does the same.

"Properly speaking, there can be no separation of mankind into creditor
and debtor classes, since, as we have seen, every man with a dollar's
worth of property is in the creditor class to the extent of that dollar,
while the world is in the debtor class and owes him therefor. There can
be but two classes: those who own something, and those who don't. There
lies the sole natural division; and not a law is framed, whether it be
for a tariff or an appropriation or an army or a navy or a coinage or a
bond issue or what you will, that does not, in lesser or greater degree,
add to or take from the riches of some man or men. No government can go
its clumsy necessary way without stepping on somebody's toes, and if one
cannot have a currency because to have it will help this individual or
hurt that one, by the same token one cannot have a government at all.

"However," concluded Mr. Bayard, "I think your talked-of advance in a
gold 'price' born of coined billions might prove in the test to be
imaginary rather than real. There has been ever a gold-ghost to frighten
folk. There was once a time when men talked of resuming specie payment,
and the public hung away from it, fearful and trembling, like an
elephant about to cross a bridge. Horace Greeley cried, 'The way to
resume is to resume!' and every dollar-dullard called him crazy. And
yet, as the simple sequel demonstrated, the elephant need not have
shivered, the bridge was wholly safe, and Horace Greeley was right."

Senator Gruff, whom Mr. Gwynn had privately requested to assume control
so far as speeches and toasts and sentiments to be expressed were
involved, now held forth in terms of flowery compliment concerning Mr.
Bayard. He thanked that able gentleman for his theory of finance.
Senator Gruff would not discuss its soundness; this was not the time nor
yet the place. He would say, however, that it was unique and
interesting.

Referring to what Mr. Bayard had called our "crazy-patch" system of
currency, he, Senator Gruff, was willing to make this statement. The
greenbacks, as all knew, were exempt from taxation. To discover how far
greenbacks and their exemption had been made to affect the whole taxes
of the several States, he, Senator Gruff, the year before had addressed
a letter to every county tax-gatherer in the country. He had asked each
to state the amount of greenbacks returned that year for his particular
county as exempt.

"I received a reply," said Senator Gruff, "from every county auditor
between Eastport and San Diego, Vancouver's and the Florida Keys. The
aggregate of greenbacks returned exempt for that one year was over
thirteen billions of dollars, while, as we know, the entire amount of
greenbacks extant in the country is but a shadow above two hundred and
forty millions. I shall make no comment on the miracle, and cite it only
as an incidental expression of one element of our money system."

Senator Gruff, continuing, recurred to the pushing forward of Senator
Hanway as a Presidential candidate. It was, while unexpected by him, a
movement so full of righteous politics that he confessed heartfelt
gratification thereat. Senator Gruff would suggest that one and only one
gentleman among those present be selected to furnish the story to the
press.

"In that way," explained Senator Gruff, "we will escape the confusion
sure to be the consequence should a half-dozen of us answer inquiries."

Senator Gruff, by common acclaim, was pitched upon as the one to deal
with the papers.

"Why, then," returned Senator Gruff, with a quizzical eye, "I foresaw
this honorable occasion and prepared for it. I shall give what we have
done to the _Daily Tory_, whose intelligent representative is with us as
a guest." And thereupon Senator Gruff, while a smile went round at this
evidence of fullest preparation for the unexpected, a smile which he met
with a merry face, drew from his pocket a document and passed it over to
Richard. In another moment a messenger was called; the story went on the
wire, and the candidacy of Senator Hanway was formally declared.

Senator Hanway, as the dinner neared its close, proposed the health of
Mr. Gwynn. In response, that remarkable man filled a goblet to the brim,
arose, and bowed with gravity and condescension to Senator Hanway.
Everybody stood up, and Mr. Gwynn's health was drunk with proper
solemnity.

The highbred conduct of Mr. Gwynn from the beginning had been worthy of
him as an old-school English gentleman. He said nothing; but he took
wine with a decorous persistency that was almost pious and seemed like a
religious rite. It should be observed that while he drank twice as much
as did any other gentleman, not excepting Mr. Harley himself, it in no
whit altered the stony propriety of his visage. There came no color to
his cheek; nor did the piscatorial eye blaze up, but abode as pikelike
as before. Also, with every bumper Mr. Gwynn became more rigid, and more
rigid still, as though instead of wine he quaffed libations of starch.
Of those who experienced Mr. Gwynn's kingly hospitality that night there
departed none who failed to carry with him a multiplied respect for his
host--a respect which with the President and General Attorney of the
Anaconda fair mounted to veneration. Altogether, from the standpoint of
everyone except the alarmed Senator Coot, the affair was not a dinner,
but a victory.

It was ten o'clock the morning after, and Richard had just reached the
street. From across the way came a gentleman who apparently had been
waiting for him to appear. It was none other than Mr. Sands, that
warlike printer whom Richard rescued from the Africans and set to work.
Richard had not had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Sands since bestowing
those benefits upon him.

"There was nothing to come for," explained Mr. Sands when Richard
mentioned that deprivation. "I wouldn't bother you now, only, being in
the business, I've naturally a nose for news. I thought I might put you
onto a scoop for the _Daily Tory_. Would a complete copy, verbatim, of
the coming report of Senator Hanway's committee on Northern Consolidated
be of any service to you?"

CHAPTER XV

HOW RICHARD MET INSPECTOR VAL

When, prior to the hour of Mr. Gwynn's dinner, Richard talked with Mr.
Bayard, the burden of their conversation was Northern Consolidated, and
what manner of report might be expected from Senator Hanway's committee.
Mr. Bayard was sure the members of the osprey pool designed a "bear"
campaign. For all that, he could not overstate the importance of getting
possession of the Hanway report the moment it was prepared. Mr. Bayard's
belief in a "bear" movement to occur was only a deduction; it was not
information--he did not know. There was no such thing as being positive
until the written report was in Mr. Bayard's hands. He would then have
absolute knowledge of the pool's intentions. Once clear in that behalf,
he would be able to meet and defeat them.

"Our start," quoth Mr. Bayard, "will be the Hanway report. Nor can we
come by that report too soon. It may lie buried for weeks before Senator
Hanway produces it in open Senate. Its production will take place the
day before the pool's activities begin. It will be deferred until the
market in its strength or weakness favors their aims. Wherefore, my
young friend," concluded Mr. Bayard, clapping a slim hand on Richard's
shoulder, "to work! That report is the key. Every day we have it in our
hands before it is read in the Senate means a million dollars."

Mr. Bayard forced upon Richard the mighty propriety of getting hold of
Senator Hanway's report; and Richard--to whom the report meant Dorothy
the peerless, not paltry millions--was carried to the impolite length of
bringing up the topic of Northern Consolidated at Mr. Gwynn's dinner.
Richard asked Senator Hanway the plump question of the committee's
labors, and what time its report would appear.

"The sessions," said Senator Hanway, who, being about his departure, was
getting into his Inverness at the time, "are still in progress. It will
be several weeks before the close of the hearings. Then there must be
time for deliberation; and finally a day or more for writing the report.
You may be sure, however," concluded Senator Hanway, "that the _Daily
Tory_ shall have it before the other papers. It shall be an exclusive
story; I promise you that."

And the next day comes the veracious Mr. Sands asking whether a verbatim
copy of that report would be of service to him!

No marvel Richard stared.

"Because," observed Mr. Sands, puffing an extremely repulsive cigar,
"I've got it here."

"Do you mean the report of Senator Hanway's committee that is
investigating Northern Consolidated?" cried Richard.

Mr. Sands tilted his derby over a confident left eye, blew a devastating
cloud, and said he did.

"It was only last night," observed Richard, still bitten of doubt, "that
Senator Hanway told me the committee had not ended its hearings."

Mr. Sands of the malignant cigar was not discouraged. Senator Hanway had
lied. All Senators lied, according to Mr. Sands. No man could be a
Senator unless he were a liar any more than a man could be a runner
without first being able to walk. The committee was through with the
inquiry; the report had come into the Government printing office the day
before in the handwriting of the truthless Senator Hanway himself. It
was now set up in types, and the forethoughtful Mr. Sands had abstracted
a copy.

"As I said," explained that enterprising printer, "I've got a nose for
news. I thought it might do for a scoop, d'ye see, so I swiped it for
you."

"Let me look at it," said Richard, whose pulses were beginning to beat a
quickstep. He was remembering the value of the report as explained by
Mr. Bayard. "Let me see it, please."

Mr. Sands took from his pocket two strips of paper. Richard looked at
one and then the other; they were white as snow, guiltless of mark or
sign of ink.

"There's nothing here," said Richard, the thing beginning to be
mysterious.

For a moment Richard feared that Mr. Sands might be again immersed in
his cups. That follower of Franklin reassured him.

"The report is there all right," he observed, "only we can't read it out
here in the light. Now if we could find a dark room, one with a window,
I'd show you what I mean."

Richard returned to Mr. Gwynn's. Before they entered he gave Mr. Sands a
perfecto. The latter, who knew a good cigar from smoking many bad ones,
threw away the devastator and lighted Richard's. He rolled it from one
corner of his mouth to the other, sucked it tentatively, then passed the
fire end beneath his nose after the manner of a connoisseur. His
experiments exhausted, he pronounced it a "corker."

Richard conveyed Mr. Sands to his own apartments. The front window was
what Mr. Sands required. He pinned the slips to the top of the lower
sash. As the depended slips were brought with their backs to the light,
Mr. Sands showed Richard how they were in the nature of stencils, the
white light showing through in printed words. Richard was dumb; it was a
kind of prodigy. He read the stencils, beginning at the top of the one
which Mr. Sands said was the "lead."

[Illustration: It was a Kind of Prodigy]

"The report is set in minion," explained Mr. Sands, "and with this light
you can read it plain as ink."

Richard discovered the truth of what Mr. Sands averred; here indeed was
Senator Hanway's Northern Consolidated report, and as readily made out
as though printed in a book.

"This is the idea," vouchsafed Mr. Sands, who saw that Richard was warm
for explanations. "The boss gave out the report in little 'takes' of
about fifty words each. That was because it must be kept secret. Fifty
printers set it up; then the boss locked the galleys in the strong room.
No one except the boss himself had had a glimpse of it. Of course, that
made me the more eager to nail it; anything a fellow wants to hide is
bound to be big news, d'ye see. Now I'm the man who takes the proofs,
and this morning the boss tells me that Senator Hanway wants a copy--one
proof, no more. The boss goes to the strong room and brings the galleys
to the proof-press. I'm ready for him; I've dampened two sheets of
proof-paper and pasted them together. I spread both of them on the
types. After I've sent the roller over them, I peel the sheets apart and
throw the white one, the one that was on top, on the floor. The bottom
one that has the ink-impression on it I pass to the boss. He sees me
peel the top sheet off, and it rouses his suspicions.

"'What's that for?' he asks.

"I'm filling my pipe as calm as duck-ponds, and explain that the
proof-press in which the galley lies is too deep. It takes two
thicknesses to force the sheet down on the face of the types and get a
good impression. The boss is only a politician, not a printer, so this
explanation does him. While he's locking up the galleys again, I get
away with these. You see, with two thicknesses of paper, the types cut
through; it makes a stencil of it. With a little light behind, the
stencil shows up as well as a regular proof. After I'd got organized, I
took a day off, clapped a 'sub' on my stool, and headed for you. As I've
said, it struck me like a big piece of news."

"It's bigger than you know, Mr. Sands," observed Richard, giving that
worthy's hand a squeeze that made him flinch. "If you don't mind, I'll
not use it as news. You will not mention the fact, but there's a deal on
in Wall Street; I can do better with it there. I cannot thank you too
much for what you've done."

Mr. Sands was pleased, and departed for the nearest rum counter, his
face expressing complacency. He had partly evened up, he said, for what
Richard did the night that he, Mr. Sands, became entangled with the
Hottentots. He, Mr. Sands, would lie in ambush for further scoops; he
could promise Richard everything in the Government printing office which
any statesman was trying to conceal.

Richard drew his desk before the window and, reading the stencils line
by line, made a perfect copy. As his pen swept across the paper he
reflected on the deceitfulness of Senator Hanway, who, with the report
written out in full, was for having him think that the committee would
not conclude its labors for weeks.

"What a mendacious ingrate it is!" thought Richard.

Mr. Bayard had taken the ten-o'clock limited for New York that identical
morning. Richard caught a train a trifle after one, wiring Mr. Bayard to
meet him at the hotel. They would have dinner together. To make sure of
Mr. Bayard, Richard's message read:

"I have that report. You were right."

Mr. Bayard pored over the Hanway findings, and the further he read the
more his satisfaction stood on tiptoe. Conceive a gallery hung round
with paintings that would baffle a Rubens and set a Murillo to biting
the nail of envy! Have an orchestra polished to the last touch of
execution, discoursing the divinest work of some highest priest of
music. Sentinel the scene with marbles that would have doubled the fame
of a Praxiteles. Now, with your stage set, invite to its sumptuous midst
some amateur of all the arts whose senses were born for the beautiful.
Do what you will to endow your artist with contentment in perfection.
Fill his pockets with gold, give him wine of his fancy, have the woman
he loves by his side, so surround him that the eye, the ear, the
stomach, the heart, the pocket, or whatever is the soul of his soul may
be appealed to and enthralled--this artist, with whom love is a
religion, wine a cult, music a passion, and pictures are as dreams! When
you have him thus fortunately established, this artist of yours--for you
are not to forget he is none of mine--peruse his face. You should find
it expressing ecstasy in sublimation--you should discover it wearing the
twin to that look which mounted the brow of Mr. Bayard as he devoured
the Hanway report.

"Beautiful!" he whispered when he had finished.

Then he fell silent, prisoner to himself, walled in with his own
thoughts. A moment passed and the clouds rolled away; the delight faded,
and this artist among gamblers for whom speculation possessed harmony
and color and form, and whose life had been an Odyssey of Stocks,
recovered the practical.

"It is as I surmised," he said, with a sigh of content. "They will fall
upon Northern Consolidated bear-fashion--all claw and tooth. This report
finds the road to be a thief for millions; and a debtor for millions
upon that. The Attorney General must collect. The road must be taken by
a receiver until the public is repaid--the public indeed! Then those
priceless grants are to be repealed. Northern Consolidated is to be
stabbed with a score of knives at once. Beautiful! What a trap they have
set for themselves!"

Richard, not knowing what reply might be expected, smiled to fetch his
countenance into sympathy with Mr. Bayard's, and retreated to his usual
refuge of a cigar.

"Now," went on Mr. Bayard briskly, "I can give you the rougher outlines
of what will occur. This report, as I told you, may be weeks in finding
its way into the Senate. Stocks opened the year very strong; the markets
are upon an upgrade. While the boom continues, the pool will do
nothing. The moment prices show a weakness our friends will act. Given
three days of falling prices, this report will come out. The Senate will
be invoked to an attack upon Northern Consolidated. The pool will spring
upon the market, right and left, selling thousands upon thousands of
shares. They will try for a stampede. They look to drop Northern
Consolidated twenty-five points, as woodmen fell a tree."

"And what is to be our course?" asked Richard.

"We shall buy every share of Northern Consolidated as fast as it is
offered; go with them to the end. They will find themselves in their own
net.

"Since our first talk," Mr. Bayard continued, "I have been gathering
information. Of the one million shares which form the stock of Northern
Consolidated, over six hundred thousand are held in England, France,
Belgium, Holland, Germany, Denmark, and even a bundle or two in Sweden.
I shall keep the cables warm to-morrow. The day following, our agents
will be quietly buying those European shares at private sale in London,
Paris, Brussels, Berlin, Copenhagen, Hamburg, Stockholm, wherever they
are to be found. Should they give us a week, we shall have so narrowed
the field of operations for our 'bears' that their first day's sales
will land them in a corner. Once we have them penned, we may take our
time. They will be as helpless as so many caged animals."

When Storri on that jealous evening left the San Reve, his nerves were
somewhat tossed and shaken. It was not over-late; he would stroll to the
club by roundabout paths, the walk and cold night air might steady him.

That roundabout route led Storri past the Treasury Building, and, as he
slowly paced the pavement bordering one side of the massive structure,
he was brought to sudden stop by a heavy timber platform six feet square
and lifted a foot and a half from the ground, which cumbered the
sidewalk nearest the curb. Storri surveyed the platform in a lack-luster
way. It had, from its appearance, been there years; it was strange he
had never noticed it before.

An old man, one of the night guards of the Treasury, buttoned to the
chin, was standing in a narrowish basement door-way of the great building
not fifteen feet away. The old man took his pipe out of his mouth, and
seeing Storri survey the obstructing platform, observed:

"If I had a sack or two of the billions of gold that's been dumped on
that platform, I wouldn't be smokin' my pipe 'round here to-night."

Gold as a term never failed to attract the Storri ear. He opened
converse with the old man of the pipe. It was to this heavy platform the
treasure-wagons backed up when they brought bullion to the Treasury.
Storri learned another thing that gave him the sort of thrill that
setters feel when in the near vicinity of a covey of grouse. The vault
that held the gold reserve was within sixty feet of him as he stood in
the street. Just inside those thick, hopeless walls they lay--millions
of piled-up yellow treasure. Storri stared hard at the impassive granite
and licked his lips. The nearness of those millions pleased him like
music.

"Sixty feet!" exclaimed Storri unctuously. "That doesn't sound far, but
before a robber pierced such a wall as that he would fancy it far
enough."

"Oh, a robber wouldn't try the wall," said the old man, turning to look
at it. "I've often wondered though that no one ever thought of the sewer
out there;" and the old man marked a line in the air with his pipe-stem
as though tracing the direction of the great street drain that ran
beneath the pavement.

Storri kept on his journey to the club, but the notion of those
millions, almost within hand's touch of the open street, continued to
haunt him pleasantly. The sewer, too! Would a tunnel reach this
treasure? The question used to come back upon Storri. Also he got into
the habit, as he went about the streets, of walking by the Treasury.
This was not offspring of any purpose; Storri had none. It was only that
he took an instinctive satisfaction in the nearness of that heaped-up
gold. He could feel its close neighborhood, and the feeling was as wine
to his imagination.

Storri was not permitted respite by the San Reve concerning the Harleys.
The jealous one of the green-gray eyes insisted upon seeing Storri
often; and he, putting on a best face, pretended that he loved the San
Reve the better for her jealousy. To keep the peace, he was wont to drop
round to Grant Place three or four times a week.

These concessions to the San Reve and her rather too fervid love would
not get in the way of Storri's dinners at the Harleys'. For a time he
should go there but once a week. When despair had chilled Dorothy to
tameness he would go oftener. Just then he must give her terrors
opportunity to do their freezing work.

Storri could not have told whether he loved or hated Dorothy; he was
only conscious of a fire-fed passion that consumed him. He must possess
her; or, if not that, then he must grind her into the earth. He would
torture her as he was tortured; he would blacken her by blackening Mr.
Harley; with her pride in the dirt, with disgrace upon her, where then
was that man who would wed her? The daughter of a forger--she would
stain the name of wife! Richard might have her then; Storri would give
her to him for a revenge! These were the mutterings of Storri as he went
preyed upon by love and hate at once.

"If you do not love Miss Harley," said the flushed but logical San Reve,
"why do you go there? You say, 'Once a week!' Why once a week? Why once
a month? Why at any time? Storri, you do love her! And you come to me
with lies!" This was on the evening following the scene that gave Storri
such disquiet.

Storri, being spurred, and resolute to silence the San Reve, took that
pertinacious beauty into his confidence, lying wherever it was
inconvenient to tell the truth, and bragging always like a Cheyenne.
Storri strode about the San Reve's rooms and told his tale grandly. His
San Reve must listen; he would show her how a Russian gentleman avenged
himself. He, Storri, hated the Harleys. Mr. Harley had cheated him;
Dorothy had laughed at him; her lover, that Richard, bah! he had even
threatened Storri. Chastise him? Could a nobleman chastise a toad--a
reptile? No; there was a debt due his caste.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley?--a vapid fool! Storri despised her. He despised them
all and hated them all. They had affronted him. And for those injuries
done his pride he would punish and spare not. He, Storri, would bring
sorrow and shame to them; he would mark their lives with black.

Being launched, Storri drew great joy from the rehearsal of what griefs
he had devised against the Harleys. To prove his own superior
cleverness, Storri told the San Reve how he trapped Mr. Harley into
forging his name to the French shares.

"There is my weapon!" cried the triumphant Storri. "With that I may
smite them when I choose! To-morrow, within the hour, I could have this
scoundrel Harley in a criminal's cell! Some day I shall do that.
Meanwhile, he knows; the proud girl knows. It is for vengeance I go to
the Harleys', my San Reve, not love. I sit at their table, I eat their
food, I drink their wine; and I laugh and I gloat over them--these
little people! Yes, my San Reve, the hand of the coward Harley shakes as
he lifts his glass; the fair, proud Dorothy shows me my triumph in her
whitened cheek and frightened eye. And best of all, the empty chatter of
the magpie Mrs. Hanway-Harley--who knows nothing, being a fool! It is
that magpie chatter to be poison in the ears of the others! Oh, you
should behold them, my San Reve! You should witness how they writhe and
how they tremble in the presence of your Storri!"

The San Reve listened, but the gloom hung low on her brow. She did not
believe her Storri who said he ate a weekly dinner for revenge. Yes, he
had obtained a mastery over Mr. Harley; he had forced his way into the
company of Dorothy and shut the door on Richard! The San Reve shook her
jealous head; that was not vengeance, that was love.

And Storri would succeed, too! This Dorothy would come to love him as
she, the San Reve, loved. Dorothy was a woman; and what woman could
resist Storri? This Dorothy loved him even now; her coldness was an
attitude, a fiction. It was meant to be a lure to Storri and whet his
eagerness!

These were the thoughts like living coals which the San Reve hid in her
heart. But while her head whirled, and her sight was blurred, and her
pulses set a-throb with the jealous storms that swept her, it was
wonderful to note how the San Reve's office-trained mind seized upon and
registered those French shares. It was those shares that constituted
Storri's hold upon the Harleys. Could she break the hold? Those shares
were the locks of her Samson. Oh, if she might but shear the locks! Then
she would have her Storri again--in his weakness she would have him. The
San Reve knitted her brows.

These days of separation were more easily borne by Richard than by
Dorothy. Richard was rich in a dogged fortitude common enough with men.
Moreover, he had his work, and he went into it more deeply than before.
Eleven o'clock still found him in the study with Senator Hanway, albeit
Dorothy was no longer there to make a lovely third. Perhaps for that
reason more politics and news of legislation were discussed by Richard
and Senator Hanway.

The latter gentleman, these days, was in the best of tempers. Nothing
could be more smoothly hopeful than the outlook for that nomination.
Senator Gruff, who was indefatigable for Senator Hanway, told him that
Speaker Frost reported his own State delegation as already in line. Also
the President of the Anaconda, from whom Senator Gruff had letters every
week, described the Hanway sentiment in Anaconda regions as invincible.
The National Convention, in the interests of Senator Hanway and over the
objection of the friends of Governor Obstinate, had been fixed for the
last of May. This was a help; Senator Hanway's forces were organized and
Governor Obstinate's were not. The less space permitted that candidate
and his henchmen, the better for Senator Hanway. As Senator Gruff and
Richard sat together in Senator Hanway's study one morning, the Senator
pointed out on the map a sufficient number of States, and each certain
to send a Hanway delegation, to carry the nomination.

"If the convention were held to-morrow," observed Senator Gruff, "we
would win. The effort now must be to head off encroachments by Governor
Obstinate."

The above came on an occasion when Senator Gruff was in a confidential
mood. Commonly, as a chief Hanway manager, he lay as blandly close and
noncommittal as a clam.

There was the issue of finance, Senator Gruff explained, and that was a
growing source of trouble to Senator Hanway. The latter gentleman's
endeavor had always been to say nothing upon finance, but silence was
becoming difficult. Governor Obstinate was openly and offensively for
gold in a sod-pawing, horn-lowering, threatening way, and just as a
buffalo bull might have been for gold. This settled the standing of
Governor Obstinate in silver communities; they would have none of him.
Those same silver people, however, demanded all the more that Senator
Hanway define his position in the money war. They gave tongue to those
pig-and-poke objections voiced by Senator Coot. It was clamors such as
these, so Senator Gruff told Richard, that made silence a work of
weariness.

"Now I thought," observed Richard, "that Mr. Bayard talked wisely upon
silver and gold the evening of the dinner. Why wouldn't it be well to
talk to the people in the same manner even if one did not adopt the
theories expressed? Let Senator Hanway clearly announce his views and
give his reasons. The latter should defend him with thinking men."

"Thinking men," retorted Senator Gruff with an experienced smile, "are
in a hopeless minority. Talk reason to the public? One might as well
talk reason to the winds. Politics, as a science, is not addressed to
the intelligence but to the ignorance of men."

Senator Hanway, after sundry conferences with Senator Gruff and others,
offered the resolution asking for a committee to meet with the Ottawa
government on the matter of that Georgian Bay-Ontario Canal. The
majority opinion of those consulted was that the resolution ought to
strengthen Senator Hanway. Certain railways might object; there were
influences infinitely larger, however, that would applaud. Besides, the
resolution had a big look and sounded like statesmanship. It could not
do otherwise than dignify Senator Hanway in public estimation. Senator
Hanway gave Richard for the _Daily Tory_ an interview of depth and power
in which he urged the international value of such a waterway America
and Canada should dig and own it together; it would be a bond to unite
them. It would promote friendship, and what was better than friendship
between countries? Senator Hanway said nothing about Credit Magellan,
nor did he intimate any relationship between his Georgian Bay-Ontario
Canal and the investigation of Northern Consolidated.

Storri had become very fond of the company of Mr. Harley. He would find
him in the Marble Room in the rear of the Senate Chamber, or he might
cross his path at Chamberlin's. Washington is a small town; there it is
not difficult to keep a man in sight. Storri kept Mr. Harley excessively
in sight; and it wore visibly on Mr. Harley, whose health was breaking
down. Storri liked the pain his presence gave Mr. Harley; and besides,
he argued that to see him frequently strengthened his hold upon that
unhappy man. When they were together, Storri's manner was hideously
cheerful; he would talk Credit Magellan and consider Northern
Consolidated as though nothing were awry. This was the refinement of
cruelty, as when a cat pretends to let the mouse escape.

One day, when Storri and Mr. Harley were together, the former's face was
purposely dark. Mr. Harley grew uneasy; his courage had all slipped from
him by now, and he waited in terror upon the looks of Storri.

"Harley," cried Storri, having sufficiently enjoyed the effect of his
scowls, "you John Harley, I have ever your credit at heart. Yes, Harley,
I have kept a guard, what you call a spy, about your house to see if the
vile Storms would enter when you were not there to repel him. He goes
each day, I find, to see the honorable Senator Hanway. It does not
please me, who am a Russian gentleman and a nobleman, that so low a
being, although he does not personally meet her, should yet come beneath
the same roof with your lovely daughter who is to become my Countess
wife. You will correct this; eh, you Harley--you John Harley?"

Mr. Harley had not named Storri to Dorothy since that awful New Year's
night. However, so worn to abject thinness was now his spirit on the
constant wheel of fear that he carried Storri's latest word to her
without apology. Richard must not visit Senator Hanway in his study. Mr.
Harley could not go to Senator Hanway, he could not go to Richard; he
could come only to her.

Dorothy, whose trembling concern was her father, and who felt ever more
and more like some fly caught fast in a spider's web, made no reply.
There was nothing to say--nothing save obedience. She wrote Richard that
Storri had set a spy upon the house, and asked him to forego his calls
upon Senator Hanway. The close of the letter was a hysteria of love and
grief.

Richard sought Bess; he saw much of the pythoness now. Dorothy, for her
part, never crossed the street lest she meet him, and bring down
Storri's wrath upon her father. Richard knew what Bess would say, but he
must have someone to converse with. Bess took the course anticipated: he
must obey Dorothy in this as in the rest.

"It comes to little either way, the calling upon Senator Hanway," was
Bess's comment.

"It comes to this," cried Richard, "that we are the slaves of Storri!
I'd give ten years off my life if he and I might settle this together."

"The real settlement would be made by Mr. Harley--by Dorothy. You must
not go near Storri. But isn't there a hint in this?" Bess considered.
"Would it not be wise to imitate the gentleman and set a spy to dogging
him? Perhaps something worth while might be discovered."

The thought found favor with Richard, who, under usual circumstances,
would have been against the proposal. Yes, he would have Storri shadowed
day and night. It would be a retort for that spy about the Harley house.

Richard sent a message to Mr. Bayard, reciting his determination and
asking advice. He desired to do nothing that might work an interference
in Mr. Bayard's arrangements concerning Northern Consolidated.

Mr. Bayard replied that he thought a better knowledge of Storri could do
no harm; news of the enemy was ever a good thing. Mr. Bayard went a step
beyond, and said that he would send a man to Richard whom he could trust
for the work.

The morning following the receipt of Mr. Bayard's message, a foppish,
slender young gentleman accosted Richard.

"Mr. Storms, I believe?" remarked the foppish stranger, lifting his hat.

"Yes, sir; Mr. Storms," said Richard.

"Mr. Bayard asked me to say that I am Inspector Val of the Central
Office, New York, with two months' leave of absence at your service."

CHAPTER XVI

HOW RICHARD RECEIVED A LETTER

Inspector Val did not resemble the detective officer of literature. His
foppishness arose from an over-elegance of costume rather than any
violence of color. The famous thief-taker might have stood for what was
latest in fashionable dress, with every detail of hat and glove and
cravat and boot worked out. There befell no touch of vulgarity; the
effect was as retiringly genteel as though the taste providing it
belonged to a Howard or a Vere de Vere and based itself upon ten
unstained centuries of patricianism. When he lifted his hat, one might
see that the dark hair, speciously waved, was as accurately parted in
the middle as though the line had been run by an engineer. The voice of
Inspector Val, low and lazy, fell on the ear as plausibly soft as the
ripple of a brook. His eyes wore a sleepy, intolerant expression, as if
tired with much seeing and inclined to resent the infliction of further
spectacles. The nose was thin and high, and jaw and cheek bones were
thin and high to be in sympathy.

There were two impressions furnished the student of faces by Inspector
Val. Glanced at carelessly, one would have called him not more than
twenty-five; a second and a sharper survey showed him fifteen years
older. Also, there came now and then a look, quiet at once and quick,
which was calculated to arrest the trained attention. What one thought
following that second sharp canvass was in exact opposition to what one
thought after the glance earlier and more upon the casual.

Inspector Val baffled Richard's conception of the man concerning whom
all who read papers had heard so much. Was this indolent individual that
inveterate man-hunter who, with courage of berserk and strength of
steel, had pulled down his quarry in the midst of desperate criminals,
and then, victim in clutch, cleared his path through? Something of this
may have glimmered in Richard's eye; if so, Inspector Val assumed to
have no hint of it, and busied himself in a more precise adjustment of
his boutonnière, which floral adornment had become disarranged. The
longer Richard contemplated Inspector Val the more he felt his whalebone
sort. The slim form and sleepy eyes began to suggest that activity and
ferocious genius for pursuit which are the first qualities of a ferret.

"If we could be more private," suggested Inspector Val, casting a tired
glance about the big public room at Willard's where the two had met.

"We will go to my house," replied Richard.

"And if you don't mind, we'll ride." This with the rising inflection of
a request. "There are carriages at the door."

"My own," said Richard, "should be across the way. I seldom require it;
but I might, and so it follows me about."

Richard and Inspector Val stepped to the Fourteenth Street door. At
Richard's lifted hand an olive-tinted brougham, coachman and footman
liveried to match, drawn by a pair of restless bay horses, came plunging
to the curb. The footman swung down in three motions, like a soldier
about some point of drill.

"Home!" said Richard.

The footman in three motions regained his perch; the whip cracked and
the brougham went plunging off for Mr. Gwynn's.

Richard came to the common-sense conclusion to lay the complete story of
his perplexities before Inspector Val. A detective was so much like a
doctor that frankness would be worth while. One was called to cure the
health, the other to cure a situation; the more one told either
scientist the faster and better he could work. Acting on this thought,
Richard related all there was to tell of himself, Dorothy, Mr. Harley,
and Storri, being full as to his exclusion from the Harley house and the
manner in which it was brought about. When he had finished, he waited
for Inspector Val.

[Illustration: That Artist of Pursuit]

That artist of pursuit did not speak at once, and asked permission to
smoke a cigarette. Richard offered no objection, although he privily
condemned cigarettes as implying the effeminate. Inspector Val lighted
one, and blew the smoke thoughtfully through the thin, high nose.
Suddenly he threw the cigarette away half smoked; it had served the
purpose of its appearance. Inspector Val had smoked himself into a
conclusion.

"This is the way the thing strikes me," began Inspector Val. "Storri, as
you say, has a hold on Mr. Harley--has him frightened. There are three
ways to frighten a man; you can threaten him physically, or with
disgrace, or with the loss of money. Storri, by your report, is a coward
with not half the courage of Mr. Harley; besides, in this case, a
physical threat is out of the question. So is a threat of money loss; it
is preposterous to suppose that this half-baked Russian has got the
upper hand in a business way of a shrewd one like Mr. Harley, or that
the latter would permit him to drive him about like a dog if he had. No,
Storri has caught Mr. Harley in some wrong-doing, or, what is as bad,
the appearance of it--something that looks like crime. Doubtless it
refers to money, as from Mr. Harley's sort it isn't likely to include a
woman."

Inspector Val was here interrupted by Matzai, who said in excuse that
the note he bore was marked "important."

"Open it," observed Inspector Val. "Once in one thousand times a letter
marked 'important' is important."

Richard cut the envelope with a paper knife and, after silently running
the missive up and down, remarked:

"This note works into our conversation as though timed to find us
together. I'll read it to you. It's in French, and if you aren't
familiar with that language I'll translate."

Inspector Val said that he preferred a translation, and Richard gave him
the following. The address and the entire note were in typewriting:

     Mr. Storms:

     Count Storri's hold on Mr. Harley consists in this: Mr. Harley
     wrote Count Storri's name on five stock certificates aggregating
     two hundred shares of the Company Provence of Paris, France. It was
     done to borrow money, but with honest intentions and at Count
     Storri's request. Now Count Storri, who has the shares in his
     possession, threatens Mr. Harley with a charge of forgery. In that
     way he compels him to do his bidding. The man who writes you this
     does not do it for your interest, but for

     His Own.

"This did not come through the mails," said Inspector Val. "Ask your man
who handed it in."

Matzai said that the note was not handed in, but thrust beneath the
door. The bell had been rung; when the door was opened no one appeared.
The note was lying in the entry.

"Will you mind," said Inspector Val, "if I call a man from across the
street?"

"Certainly not," replied Richard, somewhat astonished.

Inspector Val stepped to the window. Over the way a man was sauntering,
for all the world like a sightseer from out of town. He was admiring the
stately residences, and seemed interested particularly in Mr. Gwynn's.
Inspector Val made a slight signal, and the sightseer came over and rang
Mr. Gwynn's bell.

"Have him up," said Inspector Val to Richard. Then, as the sightseer was
marshaled into the room by Matzai: "Mr. Storms, this is Mr. England."

Mr. England's eye was bright and quick like a bird's; with that
exception he was commonplace. Inspector Val, without wasting time, began
to ask questions:

"Who shoved this note under the door?"

"A colored man, sir. He sneaked up and tucked it beneath the door as
though trying not to be caught at it. Then he pushed the bell and
skipped. The thing looked queer, and Mr. Duff thought he'd follow him.
He'll be back, Mr. Duff will, presently."

"That will do," said Inspector Val. "When Mr. Duff returns, tell him to
come in."

Mr. England withdrew, and recommenced his sightseeing on the opposite
side of the street.

"Mr. England and Mr. Duff," explained Inspector Val, "came down with me.
I shall use them to shadow Storri, as that kind of work is their
specialty. It is difficult work, too, and demands a man who has talents
for seeing without being seen. Also, he must be sharp to think and act,
and full of enterprise. To keep at the heels of a gentleman who may take
a cab, or a street-car, or enter a building by one door for the purpose
of leaving it by another, is no simple task; so I brought with me the
best in the business."

"How did your men come to be outside the door?" asked Richard, whose
curiosity concerning metropolitan detective methods had been sensibly
aroused.

"To save delay," returned Inspector Val, "which is the great rule in
detective work. They were within ten feet of us when I met you; they saw
us drive away, called a coupé, and followed. I should have given them a
jacketing if they hadn't."

Inspector Val asked Richard to slowly translate the note, while he made
a copy in English. This Richard did; at the close, being interested in
the workings of the man-hunting mind, he asked Inspector Val for his
theory of its truth and origin.

"Why, then," observed Inspector Val, pausing over Richard's translation
as he had written it down, "this would be my surmise. The note tells the
truth. It was written by a Frenchwoman who probably came from Ottawa.
She is in love with Storri, and jealous of Miss Harley, whom she thinks
Storri aims to marry. You said nothing about Storri seeing Miss Harley,
but he does. Miss Marklin was afraid to tell you and Miss Harley was
afraid to write you that feature of the situation, fearing you would
pitch in rough. It shows they have sense."

This was the first time Richard had heard how Storri enjoyed the
privilege of Dorothy's society while he was warned from the door. The
thought was fire. He sprang to his feet, growling an oath under his
breath.

"Take it easy," said Inspector Val, with a manner full of warning.
"Don't spoil a game just as the cards begin to run your way. After we
get our hands upon those French shares you may raise what row you like.
But take it easy now; try another cigar."

The prudent sagacity of Inspector Val was not thrown away, and Richard
saw the force of that gentleman's arguments.

"Tell me how you arrive at those beliefs about the note," said Richard.

"That's not so simple," returned Inspector Val. "It's like asking a
pointer to tell you how he scents a partridge. My argument takes
somewhat this route: I think the note tells the truth, as there's no
reason why it should lie. Moreover, it is a reasonable explanation of
Storri's command over Mr. Harley. I know a woman wrote it because she's
at such pains to call herself a man. Another thing, a man wouldn't have
marked this note 'Important!' It's important, but it gains no advantage
from being labeled. A woman, who acts from feeling, marks it 'important'
because she feels its importance. Now a man might feel its importance,
but he acts from reason rather than feeling, and in that respect is the
antithesis of a woman. It would never occur to a man to mark the note
'important,' because it would never occur to him that by so doing
anything would be gained. Then a man would have sent this through the
post office. A man is more cunning than a woman. The mails would have
served as well, and a messenger might be recognized and followed. To
send messengers is essentially a trick of the feminine. Your District
Messenger Service will tell you that nine-tenths of its calls are from
women."

"You have read Edgar Allan Poe, I take it," observed Richard, smiling
over the processes of Inspector Val.

"I've read Poe, Gaboriau, and Conan Doyle," returned Inspector Val; "all
detectives have. They are amusing if not instructive. But to resume:
There is another reason why I'm certain a woman wrote this note. All the
writer knows the writer got from Storri. It's a long yarn; it must cover
in its transaction a dozen interviews between Storri and Mr. Harley. And
they were not interviews at which a third party was present. You will
see the truth of that the instant I mention it. No; Storri told the
whole tale to the writer of the note. Mr. Harley wouldn't tell it for
obvious reasons. Neither would he write it to you or anybody else; it is
the publication of it that he fears. Storri was the only one besides Mr.
Harley who knew of those French shares; or of Mr. Harley's imitation of
Storri's signature and the threats of arrest for forgery which Storri
made. It's as plain as the stars at night that Storri furnished the
information upon which this letter is based. Now whom would he tell? Not
a man; there would be nothing to gain and much to risk in that. A woman,
then? Sure; this fellow has been strutting and bragging to a woman. It
is the commonest weakness of the congenital criminal. It is his way of
swaggering and seeming powerful. But mark you: he never takes a woman
into dangerous confidences unless he thinks she loves him. Do you
follow? Storri has told this to a woman in whose love he believes."

"You reason well, at any rate," observed Richard.

"Yes, sir, I reason well," returned Inspector Val. "I have reasoned like
this a thousand times, and a thousand times I was right. To go on: I
agree with Storri; the woman does love him. Why does she write this
letter? Because she wants to break Storri's grip on Mr. Harley. On Mr.
Harley's account? No, she cares nothing for Mr. Harley. In a clash
between the two her sympathies would be with Storri, whom she loves. Now
the woman in telling a lie--the only one in the letter--has also told an
important truth. It is in her last sentence. She was thinking to throw
you off as to her sex, and went out of her way to do it. She was hunting
a chance to write 'man' and 'his' and at the same time not advise you of
her purpose. The 'man' and the 'his' were to be by way of incident. With
her mind on fooling you as to her sex, she was so wholly engaged that
she told an unwitting truth; she did write this letter in her own
service. One step further: The object of the lady, as I've said, is to
break Storri's hold on Mr. Harley. Now how could the lady who writes you
benefit by that? What could there be about Storri's ascendency over Mr.
Harley to which a woman who loves Storri would object? I will tell you.
That ascendency gives him not only a hold on Mr. Harley, but a hold
through him on some woman whom the writer fears as a rival. And there
you are; I've brought the argument to Miss Harley. Storri threatens Mr.
Harley. What does he demand? That you be excluded from the Harley house.
Why? Because you see Miss Harley. Why should Storri object to that?
Because he desires to court the lady himself, and would do away with
dangerous competition. His simple hatred of you, and nothing more, would
not set Storri to talking forgery charges to Mr. Harley; that would
sound too much like burning a barn to boil an egg."

Richard growled an acquiescence.

"Very well; the woman who wrote the note would have you get possession
of those French shares. Storri has described you to her as Miss Harley's
lover; that sets her to writing you--you who have an interest as strong
as her own. Storri has never told her that he loves Miss Harley. She has
guessed it and accused him of it, being jealous; and he in reply and
denial has laid especial emphasis upon you as Miss Harley's lover. It's
more than a chance he told her the whole story as part of a jealous row.
As to the woman being French, I infer that from the note. She couldn't
trust her English or she would not have written in French. That note,
being in French, would narrow any search for its author; and that, too,
whether the author were English or French. Certainly there are fewer
people in Washington who can write French than English. You see the
point?"

"But you said a Frenchwoman from Ottawa."

"The note is on paper that was made and sold in Ottawa, as you see by
the raised mark in the corner. We've no trade with Canada for
note-paper; besides, our stores wouldn't handle such as this. It's not
of fashionable shape and size as Americans understand fashions in
note-paper. It's scented, too; and that's vulgar from American
standpoints. Also, it's feminine. No, my word for it, the woman who
wrote that note bought the paper in Ottawa and brought it here. She did
the typewriting herself, which was but natural; and she is not an adept,
as anyone may tell by the clumsy, irregular way in which she begins her
lines. Now take----"

Matzai came in and announced Mr. Duff.

"Bring him up," said Inspector Val, and then, turning apologetically to
Richard, he added: "Pardon the liberty of giving commands in your house.
I'm so eager to hear whether Mr. Duff's investigation corroborates my
theory that for a moment I thought I was back in Mulberry Street. Well,
Mr. Duff," as that worthy was ushered in, "what did you learn? This
gentleman is Mr. Storms."

Mr. Duff seemed to know all about Richard; probably his partner
sightseeing over the way had told him. He nodded blandly as Inspector
Val gave his name, and then proceeded to answer that superior officer.

"The man is a laborer in the Treasury Department. He went to the
Treasury Building from here, and made a straight wake for a woman who
works at drawing plans and that sort of thing in the office of the
Supervising Architect. He whispered something to her, and she nodded.
When he got about ten feet away, he turned like a man who has overlooked
a point, and said: 'I rang the bell; they'll get it right off.' Then he
went away. The woman's name is San Reve--Sara San Reve. She's a
Frenchwoman, and came from Ottawa. She has had her place only a short
time, and was appointed on the recommendation of a member of the
Senate--Senator Hanway."

"Senator Hanway!" repeated Inspector Val, looking dubiously at Richard.
"He's a brother-in-law, you say, of Mr. Harley?"

"Your deductions were none the less right," returned Richard, who saw
the doubts which the name of Hanway bred in the other's mind. "I'd wager
my life on it. I never heard of this Miss San Reve, but she is from
Ottawa, Mr. Duff says. I ought to have told you that Storri came to
Washington from Ottawa."

"Oh, I see!" exclaimed Inspector Val, his brow clearing. "Storri came
from Ottawa, and brought his sweetheart. Storri worked Senator Hanway
through our friend Mr. Harley, and Senator Hanway found her a place."

"Yes," returned Richard, "I think you've hit it off. The next thing is
to get hold of those French shares."

"Right there," said Inspector Val, "let me say a word. I'll first go and
put my people on the track of Storri; they'll run him, turn and turn
about, until further orders, and report each morning. That done, you and
I will take the Limited, and run over and talk with Mr. Bayard. It will
require his help to get those French shares. I'll meet you at the
station then at four."

"I shall be there," responded Richard. "Before you go, let me give you
this by way of anticipated expense," and Richard tendered Inspector Val
a check for one thousand dollars.

"That wasn't necessary," said Inspector Val, as he calmly pocketed the
check.

When Richard arrived at the station he found Inspector Val already
there. "I've taken a drawing-room," said the latter. "It may be a
weakness, but my inclination runs heavily towards concealment. I have a
horror of being seen."

"I have horrors of much the same color," returned Richard.

Richard showed Mr. Bayard the note he had received, and told of its
appearance, and the construction of the note as given by Inspector Val.

"And the question is," concluded Richard, "can we by any chance get hold
of those French shares?"

"Can we get those French shares?" repeated Mr. Bayard, as though
revolving the question in his thoughts. "I should say we might; yes, I'm
quite sure. I think it will offer no more of difficulty than just
finding out where this Storri negotiates his loans. I know where to go
for the information and, if I ask it in person, it will be forthcoming."
While Mr. Bayard spoke, his wits were working like a flashlight,
displaying for his consideration every possibility presented by the
situation. His confidence must have been strengthened by the survey, for
he closed with emphasis, saying: "I am a false prophet if I do not place
those French shares in your hands, your own property and bought with
your own money, within a fortnight."

"Within a fortnight!" exclaimed Richard, his face brightening with the
satisfaction the promise gave him.

There was that in Mr. Bayard's manner which invested his utterance with
all the credit granted his signature at the banks. Richard felt as
though the French certificates, which meant so much to Dorothy and to
him, were as good as in his hands.

"When I say a fortnight," observed Mr. Bayard, "I ought to add my
reasons. The source of my news is unimportant, but you may accept it as
settled that Tuesday next has been secretly pitched upon by our worthy
President for divers warlike declarations, founded on the Monroe
Doctrine, and pointed at Germany, whose cruisers are just now nosing
about on a debt-collecting errand against one of the South American
states. The President will resent the nosing, call German attention to
our Monroe Doctrine as the line fence between the hemispheres, and then
mount guard over the sacred rails of that venerated barrier with a gun.
All of which might excite but little interest were it not, as a
demonstration, sure to send the market tumbling like a shot pigeon. I'm
not certain that the whole affair hasn't some such commercial purpose.
Be that as it may, the day following that valorous manifesto will be a
time of panic, and the bottom will fall out of stocks. You remember what
I told you as to the plans of our friends to 'bear' Northern
Consolidated? This will bring their opportunity. When the markets begin
to toss and heave and fall with those White House antics touching
Germany and the Monroe Doctrine, Senator Hanway's report will be sprung
in the Senate. He will give it to the press the night before, so that
the morning papers may ring an alarm to the 'bulls.' This will be the
procession of affairs: The President will threaten Germany on Tuesday;
Senator Hanway's report will be in the papers and the Senate on
Wednesday; by Wednesday night our 'bear' pool will have been clamorously
selling Northern Consolidated all day. Per incident, we will have been
buying Northern Consolidated all day. By Friday evening--I give them
three selling days in which to work their ruin--I shall wire you that
they are caught in the trap by all their feet at once. It is then I
shall mail you those French shares."

"No letter will ever mean so much to me, be sure," said Richard.

"You shall receive it," returned Mr. Bayard. "By the way, we are
prepared to the last detail for that raid. I've bought more than five
hundred thousand shares of Northern Consolidated in Europe at an average
of forty-two. In order that our raiders may have what rope they require
to thoroughly hang themselves, I've brought more than two hundred
thousand of those shares to this country. It is placed where they may
reach it for the purpose of borrowing stock for delivery. In fact, our
arrangements are perfect; they make as complete a deadfall as ever
waited for its prey."

Richard and Inspector Val returned to Washington, Richard to write
Dorothy a letter freighted of promise and hope and love. In it he told
her that soon he would have canceled the last element of Storri's power,
removed the last fear of Mr. Harley, and, in loving brief, destroyed the
last bar which separated them and kept them apart.

Dorothy read the letter again and again, and then kissed it pending the
advent of something more kissable. Richard's promise was like the smell
of flowers to refresh her jaded, fear-wearied heart. The one regret was,
since Richard had forbidden it, that she could not share the blessed
promise with her father.

Richard wrote nothing of the note of warning; nor did he speak of
Inspector Val and his deductions as to Storri's visits to the Harley
house. His only thought had been to cheer the drooping soul of Dorothy
with the glad nearness of happier days. The word of comfort came in good
time, for the shameful weight of the situation was crushing Dorothy.

Mr. Harley these days walked in troubles as deep as those of Dorothy,
but not the same. Mr. Harley was not borne upon by the shame of the
thing; that did not depress him any more than the knowledge that he was
guiltless of wrong upheld him. A man of finer nature would have been
strengthened by his innocence. To such a man his self-respect would have
been important; while he retained that support he could have summoned up
a fortitude to bear the worst that lay in Storri's hands. But Mr. Harley
was no such one of fineness, upon whom he would have looked down as a
visionary and a sentimentalist. There arose the less cause why he should
be, perhaps, since Mr. Harley was sure of being popular with himself in
spite of any conduct that could be his. His ideals were not lofty, his
moral senses not keen, and what original decent point the latter might
have once possessed had long been dulled away. True, Mr. Harley was
shaken of an ague of fear; but his tremblings were born of the
practical. He was agitated by thoughts of what havoc, in his own and in
Senator Hanway's affairs of politics and business, naming him formally
as a forger would work. Such a disaster would be tangible; he could
appreciate, and, appreciating, shrink from it.

One thing to feather the wing of his apprehensions and set them soaring
was his uncertainty concerning Storri. He could not gauge Storri; he
would have felt safer had that nobleman been an American or an
Englishman. Storri was so loaded of alarming contradictions; he could so
snarl and purr, threaten and promise, beam and glower, smile and frown,
and all in the one moment of time! Mr. Harley could not read a spirit so
perverse and in such perpetual head-on collision with itself! Nor could
he, being fear-blind, see that in most, if not all of these, Storri was
acting. If Mr. Harley had realized what a joy it was to Storri to
frighten him, the knowledge might have made for his peace of mind. As it
was, he looked upon Storri as at the best half mad, and capable, in some
beckoning moment of caprice, of any lunatic move that should level the
worst against him.

Mr. Harley had one hope, and that rested with Northern Consolidated. If
he could stand off disaster until the raid on Northern Consolidated had
been made, and the profits, namely the road, were in their hands, he
might then arrange a permanent truce. In this he reckoned on Storri's
rapacity, to which a million of dollars was as a mouthful. Given a
foretaste of what riches should dwell therein, Storri would desire with
triple intensity to push forward in his earth-girdling dream of Credit
Magellan. The conquest of Northern Consolidated would teach him to look
upon the rest as sure. Being in this frame, Mr. Harley argued that
Storri, feeling his inability to go forward without him, might be
softened to the touch of reason. Under these pleasant new conditions,
with Credit Magellan hopefully launched, Storri could be treated with.
Mr. Harley would then feel his way to some safe compromise; he would
invent an offer for those French shares which should present both peril
and profit. He would threaten to go no further with Credit Magellan
unless Storri put those French shares in his hands; and he would give
him twenty-fold their value if he did. Mr. Harley harbored the thought
that Storri would yield; and yield all the more readily since his
passion for Dorothy and his appetite for revenge against Mr. Harley
would have had time to cool. Thus reasoning, and thus hoping, and, one
had almost said, thus fearing, Mr. Harley gave himself to the task in
two parts of keeping Storri in paths of peace, and praying for a break
in the market so that the attack on Northern Consolidated might begin.

You are not to suppose those changes in Mr. Harley and Dorothy went
uncounted by Mrs. Hanway-Harley; that would be claiming too much against
the lady's vigilance. In her double rôle of wife and mother, it was her
duty to observe the haggard face of Mr. Harley and the woe that settled
about Dorothy's young eyes; and Mrs. Hanway-Harley, as wife and mother,
observed them. And this is how that perspicacious matron read those
signs. She translated Mr. Harley's haggard looks at a glance; he was
losing money. Legislation, or stocks, or both, were going the wrong way;
but in legislation, or stocks, or both, or the way they went, Mrs.
Hanway-Harley refused to have an interest. If Mr. Harley had lost money,
Mr. Harley must make some more; that was all.

In divining Dorothy's griefs, Mrs. Hanway-Harley showed even greater
ingenuity. Dorothy and Richard had quarreled; Mrs. Hanway-Harley was
sharp to note that now she neither saw nor heard of Richard. Also,
Dorothy came to the dinner table when Storri was there, and neither fled
to her room nor called Bess to her shoulder on hearing that nobleman's
name announced. Mrs. Hanway-Harley saw how the land lay; Dorothy took a
more lenient view of Storri when now her fancy for Richard was wearing
dim. After all, it had been only a fancy; it asked just a trifle of
care, and the happy dénouement would be as Mrs. Hanway-Harley wished.

Mrs. Hanway-Harley began now to play her game exceeding deep. She would
say nothing of Richard; to name him would serve to keep him in Dorothy's
memory. She would say nothing of Storri; to speak of him would heat
Dorothy's obstinacy, and Mrs. Hanway-Harley had learned not to desire
that. No, she would be wisely, forbearingly diplomatic; the present
arrangement was perfect for the ends in view. Storri came to the house;
Richard stayed away; the conclusion was natural and solitary, and
Dorothy would marry Storri. Mrs. Hanway-Harley, fully understanding the
currents of events and the flowing thereof, became serenely joyful, and
the charm of her manner gained accent from those clouds so visibly
resting upon Mr. Harley and Dorothy. Yes, indeed; it must not be written
that the sun did not shine for Mrs. Hanway-Harley, whose conversation
the satirical Storri told the San Reve was as the conversation of a
magpie.

Tuesday came, and the President of this republic shook a pugnacious fist
beneath the German nose. Some impression of the weird suddenness of the
maneuver might have been gathered from the comment of Senator Gruff.
Speaking for the Senate, that sagacious man remarked:

"It came down upon us like a pan of milk from a top shelf!"

In Wall Street the effect was all that Mr. Bayard foretold. Prices began
to melt and dwindle like ice in August. Panic prevailed; three brokerage
firms fell, a dozen more were rocking on their foundations.

In the midst of the hubbub, Senator Hanway sent for Richard. Our
statesman's smile was bland, his brow untroubled.

"You see I do not forget," said Senator Hanway sweetly. "I promised that
I'd give you an exclusive story when the committee on Northern
Consolidated was ready to report. Here is the report, it was finished
last evening; I have added a brief interview to explain it."

Richard's impulse was to ask a dozen questions; he restrained himself
and asked none. Richard was not so fond of fiction as to invite it. He
sent the report and interview to the _Daily Tory_, and dispatched a
private message to Mr. Bayard, giving him the news and congratulating
him on his unerring gifts as a seer.

CHAPTER XVII

HOW NORTHERN CONSOLIDATED WAS SOLD

When the President of these United States so dauntlessly flourished the
Monroe Doctrine in the German face, and shook the Presidential fist
beneath the German nose, the flourishing and fist-shaking were
accomplished through the medium of a special message to Congress
which--a clap of thunder from a cloudless sky--made its appearance in
House and Senate upon a certain Tuesday afternoon at four of the
congressional clock. The hour of four had been settled upon to diminish
as much as might be, so the President said, the chances of an earthquake
in the New York stock market, which closed at three. In San Francisco,
which is three hours younger than New York, the winds of disastrous
speculation blew a hurricane that afternoon; but no one east of the
Mississippi cares what happens in San Francisco. Besides, the New York
hurricane was only deferred.

Tuesday afternoon, after word of that Presidential fist-shaking had
soaked into the souls of men, speculative New York went nervous to the
frontiers of hysteria. Tuesday night, speculative New York couldn't
sleep; it sat up till morning, for, like cattle, it could smell in the
breeze the coming storm. Wednesday heard the crash; and the crashing
continued unabated throughout Thursday and Friday. The papers of that
hour in attempting to describe stock conditions drew exhaustively on
such terms as "tornado," "blizzard," "simoon," "maelstrom," "cyclone,"
"landslide," "avalanche," and whatever else in the English language
means death and devastation. No one found fault of those similes, which
were justified of the hopeless truth. Values were beaten as flat as a
field of turnips. The best feature was that no banks failed; two or
three of the weaker sisters wavered, but the big, burly concerns gave
them the arm of their aid and led them through.

Days before the smash, that osprey pool had perfected the last fragment
of its arrangements. The old gray buccaneer, who had charge of the
pool's interests, was as ready for action as was Mr. Bayard. The latter
stock-King was perhaps the only one in the Street who possessed a
foreknowledge of what daring deeds our White House meditated. To Mr.
Bayard the secrets of Courts and Cabinets were told, for he had an agent
at the elbow of every possibility. The old gray buccaneer was not so
well provided; none the less, with decks cleared, guns shotted,
cutlasses ground to razor-edge, he was prompt on the instant to put
forth against Northern Consolidated now when the tempest which lashed
the market favored his pirate purposes.

Those four millions which had been decided upon as the fund of the
osprey pool were banked ready to the hand of the old gray buccaneer.
Storri, who had been losing money, exhausted himself in providing the
five hundred thousand which made up his one-eighth of the four millions.
By squeezing out his last drop of credit, he succeeded in gathering
those thousands; once gathered, he tossed them into the pool's fund as
carelessly as though they had been nothing more than the common
furniture of his pocket, without which he would not think of beginning
the day. Storri at least was a magnificent actor.

In collecting those five hundred thousand dollars, Storri, among other
securities, put up the French shares. He thought nothing of that, since
following victory over Northern Consolidated they would be back in his
hands again. Incidentally, a gratifying thing happened, something in the
nature of a compliment or a concession, which he attributed to the
snobbish eagerness of Americans to pay homage to his nobility. Fatuous
Storri; he should never have looked for compliment or concession or
snobbish adulation in a plain lend-and-borrow traffic of dollars and
cents! Men will buy a coat of arms; but they will not take a coat of
arms in pawn. No; Storri, instead of feeling flattered, should have
grown suspicious when the gentleman from whom he borrowed those five
hundred thousand proposed to let him have the full value of his
securities if in return he were given the right to confiscate should the
loans not be repaid on the nail. Why not? The new arrangement meant no
real risk; the security might always be sold in case of default. And
under the arrangement offered, Storri's credit would be enlarged by
twenty per cent. He agreed, and had immediate advantage of the fact.
Drawing to the last dollar, he made his share of the pool's four
millions good.

When the storm descended Wednesday morning, the old gray buccaneer was
instantly in the middle of it doing all he might to encourage the storm.
As the stock world went to its sleepless bed on Tuesday night, it knew
about the Presidential defiance of Germany. That news was enough to keep
the stock world shivering till morning. When it arose and read the
_Daily Tory_, its chills were multiplied by two. As if trouble with
Germany were not sufficient invitation to general ruin, here came the
Hanway report driving a knife to the heart of Northern Consolidated! At
sight of that, the stock world's last hope abandoned it, and the work of
slaughter commenced. The old gray buccaneer grinned with happiness that
awful morning as he looked across the field of coming war.

Andrew Jackson, being half Scotch and half Irish, was wont before a
battle to think and plan with the prudent sagacity of a Bailey Jarvie.
Once the battle began, he ceased to be Scotch and became wholly Irish;
he quit thinking and devoted himself desperately to execution. The old
gray buccaneer of stocks was like Andrew Jackson. His plan, thoroughly
cautious and Scotch, had been laid to sell and sell and sell Northern
Consolidated until the stock was beaten down to twenty. He would sell
savagely, relentlessly, sell with his eyes shut, until the twenty point
was reached. And if necessary, he would sell four hundred thousand
shares.

The old gray buccaneer, under the conditions existing, did not think it
would require a sale of four hundred thousand shares before the market
broke to the figure he had fixed his heart upon. The general
conflagration raging must of necessity smoke out thousands and thousands
of innocent Northern Consolidated shares. These, blind and frenzied,
would rush plungingly into the flames like horses at a fire. The old
gray buccaneer felt sure that while he was selling four hundred thousand
shares, full two hundred thousand, mayhap three hundred thousand, shares
in addition would be offered. What stock could support itself against
such a flood as that? When the bottom was reached, and the time was
ripe, the pool would gather in the harvest. It was a beautiful plan; the
more beautiful because of its simplicity!

Instantly on the morning of that black Wednesday the sale of Northern
Consolidated began. Thousands of shares in two thousand, five thousand,
and even ten thousand lots were thrown upon the market by the old gray
buccaneer. In the roar and tumult of that disastrous day, what would
have been in calmer moments a spectacle of astonishment passed much
unnoticed. The stock world was busy saving itself out of the teeth of
destruction, and the smashing and slugging in Northern Consolidated
attracted the less attention.

Northern Consolidated merited admiring attention; against that desperate
hammering, it stood like a wall of granite. Ten, twenty, forty, eighty,
over one hundred thousand shares were sold that Wednesday; and yet,
marvel of marvels, Northern Consolidated at the day's close had fallen
off no more than six points. It retreated sullenly, slowly, step by step
and eighth by eighth; ever and anon it would make a stand and hold a
price an hour. Other stocks lost twice and threefold the ground; the
stubbornness of Northern Consolidated began to engage the notice of men.
More than one poor "bull" when sore beset that day took fresh heart from
the obstinacy of Northern Consolidated; his own foothold was steadied
and made the stronger for it.

But the old gray buccaneer refused to be denied; he had quit thinking
and begun to act; he would break the back of Northern Consolidated if it
took the last share of those four hundred thousand! His courage never
wavered; he would charge and keep charging; in the end his cavalry work
must tell and the lines of Northern Consolidated crumple up like paper.
All it required was dash and confidence, with an underlying grim
determination to win or die, and Northern Consolidated must yield.

The war was renewed upon Thursday, and staggered fiercely on throughout
the day. Then Friday followed, a roaring, tottering, crashing, smashing
fellow of the two days gone before. Millionaires became beggars and
beggars millionaires between breakfast and lunch.

As on Wednesday, so also on Thursday and Friday the stock which best
sustained itself was Northern Consolidated. And yet no other stock was
so bitterly sold! As against this it should be added that no other was
so bitterly bought! Every offer to sell was closed with at the very
moment of its birth.

At last the end came; the old gray buccaneer could go no further. He had
already oversold his self-fixed limit, having parted with four hundred
and eleven thousand shares. The sales were made in the names of the
various members of the pool, each selling one-eighth of the whole.
Senator Hanway's interest, as well as that of Mr. Harley, being
fifty-one thousand three hundred and fifty shares for each, for reasons
that do not require exhibition, was handled in the name of an agent.
Full one hundred and fifty thousand innocent shares, smoked into the
open market as the old gray buccaneer had anticipated, were also sold,
making the round total of five hundred and sixty-one thousand shares of
Northern Consolidated offered and snapped up during those three days of
fire. It was the greatest "bear" raid in the annals of the Stock
Exchange, so graybeards said; and what peculiarly marked it for the
admiration of mankind was that it had had the least success. In three
days, with five hundred and sixty-one thousand shares sold, the stock
had fallen only eleven points. The raid was over and the "bears" had
growlingly retreated thirty minutes before the close on Friday. Within
ten minutes after the last offer to sell, and when it was plain the
"bears" had quit the field, under a cross-fire of bids that fell as
briskly thick as hail, Northern Consolidated was bid up thirteen points.
It had stood forty-one at Tuesday's close; it was forty-three when,
"bears" routed, the market was over Friday afternoon. And thus
disastrously fared the osprey pool.

"We're ruined, gentlemen," coolly remarked the old gray buccaneer when,
with the exception of Senator Hanway, the members of the pool gathered
themselves together Friday evening. "We're in a corner; we're
gone--hook, line, and sinker!"

"What can we do?" asked Mr. Harley, his face the hue of putty.

"Nothing!" said the old gray buccaneer, lighting a Spartan cigar. "We're
penned up; whoever has us cornered may now come round and knock us on
the head whenever he finds it convenient."

"The market is still weak," observed one, "for all it lived through the
panic. Suppose we creep in to-morrow and cover our shorts. The shares are
forty-three; I for one think it might be wise to close the deal and take
our losses, even if we go as high as fifty."

"For myself," remarked the old gray buccaneer, with a half-sneer at what
he regarded as a most childish suggestion, "I'd be pleased to settle at
sixty-five or even seventy." Then, turning to him who was for softly
buying his way out: "Do you imagine that what has happened was accident?
I tell you there's a shark swimming in these waters--a shark so big that
by comparison Port Royal Tom would seem like a dolphin. And, gentlemen,
that shark is after us. He's been after us from the beginning; he's got
between us and the shore, and he'll pull us under when the spirit moves
him. If you think differently, go into the market to-morrow and try to
buy Northern Consolidated. An attempt to buy five hundred shares will
put it up ten points."

The next day, Saturday, the pool sent quietly into the Exchange to buy
one thousand shares; that, by way of feeler. The old gray buccaneer was
right; Northern Consolidated climbed fifteen points with the vivacity of
a squirrel, and rested mockingly at fifty-eight. Following this
disheartening experiment, which resulted in nothing more hopeful than a
demand for further margins from the pool's brokers, there were no more
efforts to "buy." The pool was marked for death; but that, while
discouraging, offered no argument in favor of self-destruction.

When the markets opened upon that storm-swept Wednesday, there were
forty brokers on the floor of the Exchange to execute the orders of Mr.
Bayard. Not one of the forty knew of the other thirty-nine; not one was
aware of Mr. Bayard in the business of the day. Thirty as a maximum had
been commissioned to buy--each man twenty thousand shares--six hundred
thousand shares of Northern Consolidated. The orders had come through
banks in the city, and from banks and brokerages in London, Paris,
Berlin, and a dozen points in Europe. They ran from five hundred to as
high as twelve thousand shares the order. Each broker was given a
certain limit below which he might buy, and the orders of no two were in
conflict. Each for his orders would have the unobstructed market to
himself.

Mr. Bayard arranged for that fall of eleven points; the "bear" raid must
seem to have effect to encourage the pool. To thus foster the pool in
its hopes, ten of the forty were to "sell" Northern Consolidated in
limited lots; these sales should augment "bear" enthusiasm.

In each instance the stock thus offered was taken by one of Mr. Bayard's
brokers, who little imagined that both he and the broker selling drew
their inspirations from the same source. As demonstrating the finesse of
Mr. Bayard, if one had collected from the forty those orders which they
brought upon the floor that Wednesday morning, and spread them on a
table, they would have exhibited a perfect picture of speculation. One
would have fitted with another, and each in its proper place, until the
whole was like a mosaic of defense. The "bear" pool was met on the
threshold; it was permitted to press forward eighth by eighth according
to a plan; one Bayard broker having made his purchases, another took his
place; it was like clockwork. The whole five hundred and sixty-one
thousand shares were bought and sold; and from first to last there came
never a glimpse of Mr. Bayard.

It had been Mr. Bayard's earlier thought to let Northern Consolidated
fall as low as twenty-five. For the sake of poor men in peril from that
defiance of all things German, Mr. Bayard in the last hours of his
preparations decided to support the market. To hold Northern
Consolidated above thirty against the double pressure of a falling
market and a "bear" raid would be to the general stock list as a prop to
a leaning wall. It would save hundreds from annihilation, and Mr. Bayard
resolved for their rescue. It would cost him nothing, lose him nothing;
once cornered, the question whether that osprey pool were cornered at
twenty or at thirty or at forty was unimportant. The corner complete,
Mr. Bayard with a breath could put Northern Consolidated to fifty, to
one hundred, to five hundred, to one thousand! The measure of his
triumph would be the measure of the mercy of Mr. Bayard. _Væ Victis!_
Our Brennus of the Stocks might demand from the members of the
vanquished pool their final shilling. He might strip them as he was
stripped those thirty years before, and turn them forth naked. For thus
read the iron statutes of the Stock Exchange where quarter is unknown.

It was Mr. Bayard who caused Northern Consolidated to climb,
squirrel-wise, to forty-three as the market closed on Friday, and later
to fifty-eight. It had the effect desired; there came the call for
margins. Storri, who had put his last dollar to the hazard, went down,
exhausted, destroyed, and under foot, and, as parcel of the spoils of
that Russian's overthrow, those French shares were sent to Mr. Bayard.
Within ten minutes after he received them they were on their way to
Richard, with a letter telling how complete had been the osprey pool's
defeat. For all his dignity and his gray crown of sixty years, Mr.
Bayard's eyes were shining like the eyes of a child with a new toy. What
battle was to that Scriptural hero's warhorse so was the strife of
stocks as breath in the nostrils of Mr. Bayard. Richard's eyes were as
bright as those of Mr. Bayard when he received the French shares, but it
was a softer brightness born of thoughts of Dorothy, and in no wise to
be confounded with that battle-glitter which shone in the eyes of the
other. Thus ran the note of Mr. Bayard:

     Dear Mr. Storms:

     Our bears are safely in the pit which we digged for them. The New
     York five are taking it in a temper of stolid philosophy, being
     bruins of experience. We may keep them in the pit what time you
     will before we begin the butchery--one week, one month, one year.
     They cannot escape, since my agents on the floor of the Exchange
     will be always on the watch to see that they don't climb out. The
     first time an offer to buy or sell a share of Northern Consolidated
     is made, I shall put the price to three hundred. Our bears,
     however, know this, and will make no attempt to get away, realizing
     its hopelessness. The Storri bear is already dead; that first call
     for margins killed him, and I send you a specimen of his pelt, to
     wit, the French shares, with this. As for the others, whenever you
     are ready we will call on them for their fur and their grease and
     what else is valuable about a bear. Believe me your friend, as was
     your father the friend of

     Robert Lance Bayard.

Richard, now he had possession of those fateful securities, was somewhat
put about as to the best manner of getting them into the hands of Mr.
Harley. He, Richard, could not personally appear in the transaction. He
thought of using the excellent Mr. Gwynn; but that course offered
objections, since it would be assumed hereafter by Mr. Harley that
Richard, because of his confidential relations with Mr. Gwynn, must know
the history of those shares. Richard did not care to have such a thought
take hold on Mr. Harley; it might later embarrass both Mr. Harley and
Richard when the latter called at the Harley house, as he meant shortly
to do. Finally he hit upon an idea; he would employ the worthy name of
Mr. Fopling. The secret would be safe with one who, like Mr. Fopling,
could never be brought to understand it.

Being decided as to a path, Richard inclosed those dangerous shares with
a typewritten note to Mr. Harley. The note, speaking in the third
person, presented Mr. Fopling's compliments, explained that Mr. Fopling
was given to understand that Mr. Harley would purchase those particular
shares, stated their value as fifteen thousand dollars, and said that
Mr. Harley might send his check to Mr. Fopling.

This missive and those shares being safely on their road to Mr. Harley,
Richard made speed to hunt up Mr. Fopling. He found the sinless one at
the house of his beloved. Fortune favored Richard; Bess was not there,
being across with Dorothy, and, save for the company of Ajax, Mr.
Fopling was alone. Mr. Fopling was in the Marklin library, glaring
ferociously at Ajax, who was blinking disdainful yellow eyes at Mr.
Fopling by way of retort.

Richard explained to Mr. Fopling that through certain deals in stocks he
had become possessed of two hundred shares of one of Mr. Harley's pet
stocks. Mr. Harley would give anything to regain them. Richard desired
to return them to Mr. Harley without being known in the business. Would
Mr. Fopling permit him the favor of his name? He would employ Mr.
Fopling's name most guardedly. Richard did not tell Mr. Fopling that his
sacred name was already in the harness of the affair.

The benumbed Mr. Fopling, by listening attentively, succeeded in getting
an impression that Richard through lucky dexterity and sleight had
obtained some strange hold in stocks on Mr. Harley, and now in a foolish
leniency was about to let him go. This excited Mr. Fopling hugely; he
put in a most vigorous protest.

"Weally, Stawms," he squeaked, "if you've twapped the old curmudgeon you
must stwip him for his last dime, don't y' know! I wemembah a song my
governor used to sing; he said it was his motto. The song wan like this:

    "'When you catch a black cat, skin it, skin it!
     When you catch a black cat, skin it to the tail!'

"Yes, Stawms, use my name as fweely as you please; but I pwotest against
letting up on this old cweature Harley."

"But, my dear boy," observed Richard, "you must consider! Mr. Harley is
to be my father-in-law, he's Dorothy's father."

Mr. Fopling declined to consider what he called a "technicality." Mr.
Harley must be squeezed.

"Weally, Stawms," said Mr. Fopling, "it's the wules of the game, don't
y' know."

After no little argument, Mr. Fopling yielded his point. Mr. Fopling,
however, bethought him of troubles of his own, and made condition that
Richard stand his friend with Bess as against his enemy, Ajax.

"Bees always sides with Ajax," explained Mr. Fopling plaintively, "and
it ain't wight!"

Richard gave Mr. Fopling a fraternal grip with his mighty hand. He would
be to Mr. Fopling as was Jonathan to David. It should be back to back
and heel to heel with them against Ajax, Bess, and all the world! The
violent loyalty of Richard alarmed Mr. Fopling; he threw in a word of
caution.

"You mustn't be weckless, Stawms."

Bess came back from the Harley house, and found Richard with Mr.
Fopling. Bess reported Dorothy's spirits as improved; those rays of
comfort emanating from Richard's promises had put a color in her cheek.

"The promises have been redeemed," observed Richard, "and I came to tell
you first of all--you who have been our truest friend," and here, to the
utter outrage of Mr. Fopling's sensibilities, Richard kissed Bess's
yellow hair.

"Oh, I say, Stawms!" squeaked Mr. Fopling reproachfully.

"Mistake, I assure you!" said Richard, again giving Mr. Fopling his
hand.

"Well, please don't wepeat it!" returned Mr. Fopling a bit sulkily. "It
gives me a most beastly sensation, don't y' know, to see a chap
cawessing Bess; it does, weally!"

"Hush, child!" said Bess; "you excite yourself about nothing."

Bess was for having Dorothy over on the strength of the good news, but
Richard was against it, proudly.

"No," said he. "With Storri's hold upon him, Mr. Harley asked me to stay
away from his house. Now Storri's hold is broken, I shall give him a
chance to ask me to return."

"Oh, I see," replied Bess teasingly. "Sir Launcelot having done a
knightly deed and rescued a fair damsel, and the fair damsel's family,
from a dragon, will give his vanity an outing."

"Only till to-morrow evening!" protested Richard, humbled from the high
horse. "If Mr. Harley doesn't invite me by that time, I'll invite
myself."

"If Mr. Harley doesn't invite you by that time," returned Bess, "I will
interfere. Those who can't see their duty must be shown their duty, Mr.
Harley among the rest. On the whole, I think you take a very proper
stand."

Storri, without a dollar, lay in his rooms like a wounded wolf. He did
not go to the San Reve; he would see no one until he had worn down his
anguish and regained control of himself. Hurt to the death, Storri was
too cunning to furnish word of it to mankind. No one must know; it was
the instinct of self-preservation. The wounded wolf, while his wounds
are fresh, avoids the pack lest the pack destroy him. And so with
Storri; he would hide until he could command that old-time manner of
unclouded ease. He would stifle every surmise, deny every rumor if rumor
blew about, of the blow he had received. A few days, and Storri would be
himself again. As for immediate money, Storri would extort that from Mr.
Harley, who, in his dull-head ignorance or worse, had been the author of
his losses. Who first spoke of Northern Consolidated? Who suggested the
"bear" raid? Was it not Mr. Harley? The affair had been his; the loss
should be his; Mr. Harley must repay, or face the wrath of Storri.

"Face the wrath of Storri!" exclaimed that furious nobleman with an
oath. "He would face nobody--nothing! Bah! that Harley; he is a dog and
the coward son of a dog! Yes, he shall come here; he shall crawl and
crouch! I, Storri, will give him the treatment due a dog!"

Storri wrote a blunt word to Mr. Harley and dispatched it to that
shattered capitalist.

"Come to-night at nine, you Harley," said the note, "and do not presume
to fail, or my next communication will be through one of your officers
of police."

Storri was aware that the French shares were gone from him, but he
counted on easily tracking them and buying them back. He would force Mr.
Harley to give him the very money that was to buy them. The thought
lighted up his cruel face like a red ray from the pit; it would be such
a joke--such a triumph over the pig American! Meanwhile he would bully
Mr. Harley, who did not know but what the shares were in his pocket.

If Storri had been informed of how, through the deep arrangements of
that strategist of stocks, he had borrowed every dollar of those five
hundred thousand from Mr. Bayard, as well as every share of Northern
Consolidated delivered to perfect those sales that had brought him down
in ruin--in short, if he had been told the whole romance, from Mr.
Fopling's exhortation to "Bweak him!" to the close of the market on that
crashing Friday afternoon, he might have been less sure of recapturing
those French shares. But he was ignorant of those truths; and, with
confidence bred of ignorance, he summoned Mr. Harley. He, Storri, would
browbeat and bleed him; he would teach the caitiff Harley to be more
careful of the favor, not to say the fortune, of a Russian nobleman.

Mr. Harley, with the defeat of the "bear" attack on Northern
Consolidated, was left in forlornest case. He was aware that it spelled
money-ruin for both him and Senator Hanway; but the picture of the rage
of Storri, and what that savage might do in his bitterness, so filled up
his thoughts that he scarcely heeded anything beyond. Mr. Harley was
stricken sick by his own fears, and, after returning from New York on
the evening of that fearful Friday, never moved from his room. To the
anxious tap of Dorothy, he sent word that he was not ill, but very busy;
he must not be disturbed. Like Storri, only more a-droop, Mr. Harley
owned no wish for company.

Mr. Harley was thus broken to the ground when Storri's message found
him. The threat at the tail, like the sting at the tail of a scorpion,
stunned Mr. Harley past thinking. He could neither do nor plan; he could
only utter his despair in groans.

Two hours later, and while he lay writhing, Richard's inclosure of the
French shares arrived by post. Mr. Harley at sight of them came as near
fainting as any gentleman coarsely grained and hearty ever comes. Ten
minutes went by in stupid gazing, and in handling and feeling those
certificates that were to him as is the reprieve that comes to one who
else would die within the hour.

There is such a thing as compensation, and the very coarseness of which
you have now and again complained made most for the rescue of Mr. Harley
at this crisis. By dint of that valuable coarseness, Mr. Harley,
discovering that he could trust his eyes,--he at one time doubted those
visual organs,--recovered such strength, not to say composure, that he
ordered up a quart of burgundy and drank it by the goblet. Under this
wise treatment, and with the reassuring shares in his clutch, Mr. Harley
became a new man.

The first evidence of this newness given to the world was when at eight
o'clock Mr. Harley, faultlessly caparisoned and in full evening dress,
descended upon Mrs. Hanway-Harley and Dorothy. The ladies were together
in the back drawing-room as the restored Mr. Harley, with brow of Jove
and warlike eye, strode into their startled midst. Establishing himself
in mighty state before the fireplace, rear to the blaze, he gazed with
fondness, but as though from towering altitudes, on Dorothy.

"Come and kiss me, child!" said Mr. Harley.

Dorothy obeyed without daring to guess the cause of this abrupt
affection.

"You act strangely, Mr. Harley!" commented Mrs. Hanway-Harley, with a
tinge of severity. "I hope you will compose yourself. It is quite
possible that Count Storri will drop in!"

"Madam," shouted Mr. Harley explosively, "I shall shoot that scoundrel
Storri if he puts hand to my front gate!"

"John!" screamed Mrs. Hanway-Harley.

"Madam, I shall shoot him like a rat!"

Mr. Harley got this off with such fury that it struck Mrs. Hanway-Harley
speechless. She was the more amazed, since she knew nothing of either
Mr. Harley's wrongs or his burgundy. After surveying her with the utmost
majesty for a moment, Mr. Harley came back to Dorothy.

"There's a gentleman named Mr. Storms?"

"Yes, papa!" (timidly).

"You love him?"

"Yes, papa!" (feebly).

"You shall marry him!"

"Yes, papa!" (blushingly).

"John!" (with horror).

"Invite him to dinner to-morrow."

"Yes, papa!" (rapturously).

"And every other evening you choose!"

"Yes, papa!" (more rapturously).

"John!" (with a gasp).

"And now, madam," observed Mr. Harley, wheeling on Mrs. Hanway-Harley
with politeness sudden and vast, "I am ready to attend to you. Let me
commence by mentioning that I am master of this house, and shall give
dinners when I will to whomsoever I please."

"But you said marriage, John, and Mr. Storms is a pauper! Think what you
do!"

"It may entertain you, madam," returned Mr. Harley, in a manner of grim
triumph, "to hear that you also are a pauper. Yes, madam, you, I, Pat
Hanway--we are all paupers. Now I shall go to your scoundrel Storri and
tell him what I have told you. Oh! I shall not murder the villain,
madam; though I give you my word, if there were no one to think of but
Jack Harley, I'd return to you blood to my elbows; yes, madam, to my
elbows!" and Mr. Harley pulled up his coatsleeves very high to give
force to his words.

Lighting a cigar, which he set between his teeth so that it projected
outward and upward at an angle of defiance, Mr. Harley got into his hat
and greatcoat, and made for the door. As he threw it open preparatory to
issuing forth, there floated back with a puff of cigar smoke these
words, delivered presumably for the good of Mrs. Hanway-Harley:

"Yes, madam; blood to my elbows!"

"Your father is insane!" groaned Mrs. Hanway-Harley to Dorothy, when the
door had slammed and Mr. Harley was on his way to Storri, "absolutely
insane!"

Then Mrs. Hanway-Harley, with many an ejaculation of self-pity over a
fate that had made her helpmeet to a lunatic, called her maid to aid
her in creeping to her room. As for Dorothy, she danced about as light
as air; in the finale she danced across the way to Bess to tell that
sorceress what wonders had befallen.

"Eh! you Harley--you John Harley, is it you?" jeered Storri, as Mr.
Harley was shown in.

"Yes, you black villain and thief, it is I!" roared Mr. Harley, planting
himself in front of Storri, who had not taken the polite trouble to get
up from the sofa where he reclined. "Yes, you world's scoundrel, who but
I!"

"Scoundrel?" repeated Storri with a screech, springing to his feet.

"Sit down!" thundered Mr. Harley, a pistol coming from his pocket like a
flash.

[Illustration: "Sit Down!" Thundered Mr. Harley]

Mr. Harley was from a region where pistols were regarded in the light of
arguments, and gentlemen gravely debating therewith at ten paces had the
approving countenance of the public. This may explain the ready grace
with which Mr. Harley produced a specimen of that species of artillery
when Storri seemed to threaten violence.

"Sit down!" thundered Mr. Harley, and Storri, with terror twitching at
his lips, obeyed. Mr. Harley replaced the pistol in his pocket, and
surveyed Storri with a look so sinister it alarmed that nobleman to the
heart. "I have come," continued Mr. Harley, taking a chair and
maintaining the while a dangerous eye on Storri, "I have come to return
your insults, you blackmailing rogue, in the room where I received
them."

CHAPTER XVIII

HOW STORRI EXPLORED FOR GOLD

Should it ever be your fancy to witness on the part of any gentleman an
exhibition of ferocity unrestrained, that you may have him at his best
for your experiment, it would be wise to commence by subjecting him to a
tremendous fright. Being first frightened and then relieved from his
terror, and particularly if his nature be a trifle rough, he will if
brought suddenly into the presence of one who has injured him furnish
all you could desire in a picture of the sort adverted to. And thus was
it with Mr. Harley that evening when he called on Storri--now no longer
terrible.

The offensive utmost that one gentleman might say to another, Mr. Harley
said to his aforetime noble friend. He crushed Storri beneath fourfold
what bulk of insolence and contumelious remark he himself had received,
for at that fashion of conversation Mr. Harley was Storri's superior.
Mr. Harley rendered Storri such shameful accounts of himself that the
latter was well-nigh consumed with what inward fires were ignited.
Storri burned the more because his own cowardly alarms tied his hands
and gagged retort upon his tongue. Mr. Harley, who had been frightened
to the brink of collapse in the only manner that Storri might have
frightened him, now refreshed himself unchecked and fed retaliation to
the full.

Storri, craven to the roots, must fain submit. The murderous facility
wherewith Mr. Harley in the beginning invested the conversation with
that pistol had not been lost upon Storri, and he shivered lest the
interview conclude with his own murder. Mr. Harley, having exhausted
expletive and opprobrious term, might empty the six chambers of his
dreadful weapon into Storri. Thus spake Storri's fears, and he cowered
while Mr. Harley raged. Indeed, the tables had been turned, and Mr.
Harley was taking virulent advantage of the reversal. Among other
matters, he taunted Storri with his, Mr. Harley's, possession of those
French shares, and gave him to know that the happy transfer had been the
fruit of his, Mr. Harley's, own superior wit.

"For," said Mr. Harley, with no more noble purpose than to augment
Storri's pangs, "did you think that one of my depth was for long to be
held at the mercy of such a dolt as yourself?"

"Then it was you," moaned Storri, who made the mistake of believing what
Mr. Harley said, "then it was you who bought Northern Consolidated--you,
and your confederates to whom you betrayed us?"

Mr. Harley smiled loftily, and was silent as though disdaining reply. He
was willing to have Storri think his overthrow due to him and him alone.
It would please him should Storri believe that he, Mr. Harley, had
conquered not only the possession of those shares, but of the five
hundred thousand dollars which were so painfully collected as Storri's
contribution to the pool's four millions. It would promote Mr. Harley's
satisfaction to the superlative; it would make Storri's humiliation
complete. By all means teach Storri that he, Mr. Harley, constructed the
ambush into which the pool had sold its blindfold way. Wherefore, Mr.
Harley with shrug and sneer consented to Storri's charges of betrayal,
and intimated his own profitable joy of that treason. After thirty
minutes of triumph, Mr. Harley, mightily restored in his own graces,
arose to depart.

"And for a last word, you scoundrel," quoth the loud Mr. Harley, "I told
Mrs. Hanway-Harley I would shoot you if you so much as laid hand to my
front gate. You might do well to remember that promise; I have been
known on occasion to tell Mrs. Hanway-Harley the truth."

After the last gloomy notice Mr. Harley went his defiant way, while
Storri sank back a more deeply wounded wolf than ever.

Mr. Harley drew his check and dispatched it to Mr. Fopling, and Richard
in due course received a check from the latter. Mr. Harley did not
allude to the transaction on those few and distant occasions when he and
Mr. Fopling met; and Mr. Fopling, burdened of his feuds with Ajax, soon
forgot the affair in matters more important.

Mr. Harley, when emancipated from the thraldom of Storri, was as
dollarless so far as immediate cash was concerned as was the stripped
Storri himself. But in the rebound of spirit which followed, Mr.
Harley's genius regained its old-time elasticity. A member of the House
with whom he was in touch, being one of that speculative party who
opened the New Year at Chamberlin's with cards, was so conveniently
good-natured as to offer a measure putting coal on the free list. This,
if passed, would be a woundy blow to the Harley mines; also to that
railway whereof Mr. Harley was a director, since it hauled the Harley
coal to the seaboard. With coal on the free list, Nova Scotia could
undersell the Harley mines in every Atlantic port; likewise the Harley
road would lose two millions in annual freight. Under these threatening
conditions, Mr. Harley was instantly given one hundred thousand dollars
by the mines and the railroad to kill the iniquitous bill, and convert
to a right opinion any and all who talked of coal and free lists in one
and the same breath. Those one hundred thousand dollars relieved the
pressing needs of Mr. Harley, and the bill that threatened coal and
railroads was heard of no more.

When, following Mr. Harley's gracious words concerning Richard and Mrs.
Hanway-Harley's disconsolate departure for her own room, Dorothy danced
across to Bess, the yellow-haired sorceress rose grandly to the
opportunity. She sent Mr. Fopling to find Richard; and since Mr.
Fopling's weakness was not of the legs--he being a very Mercury, with
feet as fleet as his wits were slow--Dorothy and Bess had no more than
finished giving and receiving congratulations, _i. e._, kisses, when
Richard appeared and took Bess's labor of congratulation off her
hands--or should one say her lips? Bess was of those excellent folk
whose fine friendships know when to go as well as when to stay, and,
Richard arriving, she conveyed Mr. Fopling and Ajax from the room,
leaving the restored lovers to themselves.

Of what worth now to tell you those sweetheart things that Richard and
his angel said and did? How would it advantage a world to hear that he
took her in his arms and held her close? You, who have loved and have
been loved, who were lost and have been found again, well know the
blissful routine. Richard said that no woman was ever loved as he loved
Dorothy. Dorothy the beloved replied that no man was ever loved as she
loved Richard. Both believed both statements as they did the Word. And
yet Adam said the same thing when, wandering in Eden, he first met
lovely Eve, and every lover has said the same thing ever since. Every
fire boasts itself the hottest, every lover does the same. It is the
virtue of love that this is so, and none will object while Dorothy and
Richard work out their tinted destiny on lines of paradise. They had
been held apart; they were now together; rely upon it they said and
looked those softly tender, foolish, happy, precedental things which
have been best among the best lessons of the ages.

[Illustration: He Held Her Close]

Mr. Harley was pompous and patronizing the next evening when he met
Richard at dinner; but Mr. Harley was no less kind. Richard submitted
himself to Mr. Harley's patronage, for in it he recognized the
inalienable right of a father-in-law. Mrs. Hanway-Harley on that dinner
occasion did not pretend to the rugged, high good humor of her spouse,
and cultivated a manner at once blighted and resigned. But she was civil
even as she sighed, and he would have been a carper who complained.
Dorothy was beset of many shynesses now that she was brought with her
beloved into the presence of ones who were aware of her secret without
possessing sympathy therewith. Bess was there; but Bess did not weigh
upon her, since Bess applauded her love. Senator Hanway was there; but
"Uncle Pat" did not confuse her, since he cared nothing about her love.
It was Mr. Harley who permitted, and Mrs. Hanway-Harley who tolerated,
her heart's choice that set her cheeks aflame. Still it was good to see
Richard sitting across in the serpent stead of Storri--to see one whom
she worshiped where one whom she feared and loathed had been before! It
was twice good to think the present was immortal while the past was
dead. As Dorothy thought these things and sweetly blushed to think them,
you would have been reminded of a rose, if her blue eyes had not made
you remember violets, or by their clear, true, tranquil depths led you
away to muse on summer skies.

Richard bore the ordeal of that dinner manfully; ordeal it was, for he
felt himself on exhibition. He was rigorous to seem unruffled, and
defended his calmness by talking general politics with Senator Hanway.
Nor did he fall into the error of speaking of tempests in the stock
market; and as for the recreant Storri, no one named him. Bess might