"That is only ten cents on the dollar!" she cried. "You surely would not advise me to sell for that!"

"No, I should not," he answered. "I should reject the offer. It might be well, however, to set a price for them to consider."

They had talked this matter over before, and had agreed upon a hundred and eighty thousand dollars. "I think it will be best to state that figure," he said, "and give them to understand that it is final. I imagine they would expect to bargain, but I am not much of a hand at that, and would prefer to say what I mean and stick by it."

"Very well!" said Lucy, "you use your own judgment."

There was a pause; then Montague, seeing the look on Lucy's face, started to his feet. "It won't do you any good to think about to-day's mishap," he said. "Let's start over again, and not make any more mistakes. Come with me this evening. I have some friends who have been begging me to bring you around ever since you came."

"Who are they?" asked Lucy.

"General Prentice and his wife. Do you know of them?"

"I have heard Mr. Ryder speak of Prentice the banker. Is that the one you mean?"

"Yes," said Montague,—"the president of the Trust Company of the Republic. He was an old comrade of my father's, and they were the first people I met here in New York. I have got to know them very well since. I told them I would bring you up to dinner sometime, and I will telephone them, if you say so. I don't think it's a good idea for you to sit here by yourself and think about Dan Waterman."

"Oh, I don't mind it now," said Lucy. "But I will go with you, if you like."

* * *

They went to the Prentices'. There were the General himself, and Mrs. Prentice, and their two daughters, one of whom was a student in college, and the other a violinist of considerable talent. General Prentice was now over seventy, and his beard was snow-white, but he still had the erect carriage and the commanding presence of a soldier. Mrs. Prentice Montague had first met one evening when he had been their guest at the opera, and she had impressed him as a lady with a great many diamonds, who talked to him about other people while he was trying to listen to the music. But she was, as Lucy phrased it afterwards, "a motherly soul, when one got underneath her war-paint." She was always inviting Montague to her home and introducing him to people whom she thought would be of assistance to him.

Also there came that evening young Harry Curtiss, the General's nephew. Montague had never met him before, but he knew him as a junior partner in the firm of William E. Davenant, the famous corporation lawyer—the man whom Montague had found opposed to him in his suit against the Fidelity Insurance Company. Harry Curtiss, whom Montague was to know quite well before long, was a handsome fellow, with frank and winning manners. He had met Alice Montague at an affair a week or so ago, and he sent word that he was coming to see her.

After dinner they sat and smoked, and talked about the condition of the market. It was a time of great agitation in Wall Street. There had been a violent slump in stocks, and matters seemed to be going from bad to worse.

"They say that Wyman has got caught," said Curtiss, repeating one of the wild tales of the "Street." "I was talking with one of his brokers yesterday."

"Wyman is not an easy man to catch," said the General. "His own brokers are often the last men to know his real situation. There is good reason to believe that some of the big insiders are loaded up, for the public is very uneasy, as you know; but with the situation as it is just now in Wall Street, you can't tell anything. The men who are really on the inside have matters so completely in their own hands that they are practically omnipotent."

"You mean that you think this slump may be the result of manipulation?" asked Montague, wonderingly.

"Why not?" asked the General.

"It seems to be such a widespread movement," said Montague. "It seems incredible that any one man could cause such an upset."

"It is not one man," said the General, "it is a group of men. I don't say that it's true, mind you. I wouldn't be at liberty to say it even if I knew it; but there are certain things that I have seen, and I have my suspicions of others. And you must realise that a half-dozen men now control about ninety per cent of the banks of this city."

"Things will get worse before they get any better, I believe," said Curtiss, after a pause.

"Something has got to be done," replied the General. "The banking situation in this country at the present moment is simply unendurable; the legitimate banker is practically driven from the field by the speculator. A man finds himself in the position where he has either to submit to the dictation of such men, or else permit himself to be supplanted. It is a new element that has forced itself in. Apparently all a man needs in order to start a bank is credit enough to put up a building with marble columns and bronze gates. I could name you a man who at this moment owns eight banks, and when he started in, three years ago, I don't believe he owned a million dollars."

"But how in the world could he manage it?" gasped Montague.

"Just as I stated," said the General. "You buy a piece of land, with as big a mortgage as you can get, and you put up a million-dollar building and mortgage that. You start a trust company, and you get out imposing advertisements, and promise high rates of interest, and the public comes in. Then you hypothecate your stock in company number one, and you have your dummy directors lend you more money, and you buy another trust company. They call that pyramiding—you have heard the term, no doubt, with regard to stocks; it is a fascinating game to play with banks, because the more of them you get, the more prominent you become in the newspapers, and the more the public trusts you."

And the General went on to tell of some of the cases of which he knew. There was Stewart, the young Lochinvar out of the West. He had tried to buy the Trust Company of the Republic long ago, and so the General knew him and his methods. He had fought the Copper Trust to a standstill in Montana; the Trust had bought up the Legislature and both political machines, but Cummings had appealed to the public in a series of sensational campaigns, and had got his judges into office, and in the end the Trust had been forced to buy him out. And now he had come to New York to play this new game of bank-gambling, which paid even quicker profits than buying courts.—And then there was Holt, a sporting character, a vulgar man-about-town, who was identified with everything that was low and vile in the city; he, too, had turned his millions into banks.—And there was Cummings, the Ice King, who for years had financed the political machine in the city, and, by securing a monopoly of the docking-privileges, had forced all his rivals to the wall. He had set out to monopolise the coastwise steamship trade of the country, and had bought line after line of vessels by this same device of "pyramiding"; and now, finding that he needed still more money to buy out his rivals, he had purchased or started a dozen or so of trust companies and banks.

"Anyone ought to realise that such things cannot go on indefinitely," said the General. "I know that the big men realise it. I was at a directors' meeting the other day, and I heard Waterman remark that it would have to be ended very soon. Anyone who knows Waterman would not expect to get a second hint."

"What could he do?" asked Montague.

"Waterman!" exclaimed young Curtiss.

"He would find a way," said the General, simply. "That is the one hope that I see in the situation—the power of a conservative man like him."

"You trust him, then?" asked Montague.

"Yes," said the General, "I trust him.—One has to trust somebody."

"I heard a curious story," put in Harry Curtiss. "My uncle had dinner at the old man's house the other night, and asked him what he thought of the market. 'I can tell you in a sentence,' was the answer. 'For the first time in my life I don't own a security.'"

The General gave an exclamation of surprise. "Did he really say that?" he asked. "Then one can imagine that things will happen before long!"

"And one can imagine why the stock market is weak!" added the other, laughing.

At that moment the door of the dining-room was opened, and Mrs. Prentice appeared. "Are you men going to talk business all evening?" she asked. "If so, come into the drawing-room, and talk it to us."

They arose and followed her, and Montague seated himself upon a sofa with Mrs. Prentice and the younger man.

"What were you saying of Dan Waterman?" she asked of the latter.

"Oh, it's a long story," said Curtiss. "You ladies don't care anything about Waterman."

Montague had been watching Lucy out of the corner of his eye, and he could not forbear a slight smile.

"What a wonderful man he is!" said Mrs. Prentice. "I admire him more than any man I know of in Wall Street." Then she turned to Montague. "Have you met him?"

"Yes," said he; and added with a mischievous smile, "I saw him to-day."

"I saw him last Sunday night," said Mrs. Prentice, guilelessly. "It was at the Church of the Holy Virgin, where he passes the collection-plate. Isn't it admirable that a man who has as much on his mind as Mr. Waterman has, should still save time for the affairs of his church?"

And Montague looked again at Lucy, and saw that she was biting her lip.



CHAPTER VII



It was a week before Montague saw Lucy again. She came in to lunch with Alice one day, when he happened to be home early.

"I went to dinner at Mrs. Frank Landis's last night," she said. "And who do you think was there—your friend, Mrs. Winnie Duval."

"Indeed," said Montague.

"I had quite a long talk with her," said she. "I liked her very much."

"She is easy to like," he replied. "What did you talk about?"

"Oh, everything in the world but one thing," said Lucy, mischievously.

"What do you mean?" asked Montague.

"You, you goose," she answered. "Mrs. Winnie knew that I was your friend, and I had a feeling that every word she was saying was a message to you."

"Well, and what did she have to say to me?" he asked, smiling.

"She wants you to understand that she is cheerful, and not pining away because of you," was the answer. "She told me about all the things that she was interested in."

"Did she tell you about the Babubanana?"

"The what?" exclaimed Lucy.

"Why, when I saw her last," said Montague, "she was turning into a Hindoo, and her talk was all about Swamis, and Gnanis, and so on."

"No, she didn't mention them," said Lucy.

"Well, probably she has given it up, then," said he. "What is it now?"

"She has gone in for anti-vivisection."

"Anti-vivisection!"

"Yes," said the other; "didn't you see in the papers that she had been elected an honorary vice-president of some society or other, and had contributed several thousand dollars?"

"One cannot keep track of Mrs. Winnie in the newspapers," said Montague.

"Well," she continued, "she has heard some dreadful stories about how surgeons maltreat poor cats and dogs, and she would insist on telling me all about it. It was the most shocking dinner-table conversation imaginable."

"She certainly is a magnificent-looking creature," said Lucy, after a pause. "I don't wonder the men fall in love with her. She had her hair done up with some kind of a band across the front, and I declare she might have been an Egyptian princess."

"She has many roles," said Montague.

"Is it really true," asked the other, "that she paid fifty thousand dollars for a bath-tub?"

"She says she did," he answered. "The newspapers say it, too, so I suppose it is true. I know Duval told me with his own lips that she cost him a million dollars a year; but then that may have been because he was angry."

"Is he so rich as all that?" asked Lucy.

"I don't know how rich he is personally," said Montague. "I know he is one of the most powerful men in New York. They call him the 'System's' banker."

"I have heard Mr. Ryder speak of him," said she.

"Not very favourably, I imagine," said he, with a smile.

"No," said she, "they had some kind of a quarrel. What was the matter?"

"I don't know anything about it," was the answer. "But Ryder is a free lance, and a new man, and Duval works with the big men who don't like to have trespassers about."

Lucy was silent for a minute; her brows were knit in thought. "Is it really true that Mr. Ryder's position is so unstable? I thought the Gotham Trust Company was one of the largest institutions in the country. What are those huge figures that you see in their advertisements,—seventy millions—eighty millions—what is it?"

"Something like that," said Montague.

"And is not that true?" she asked.

"Yes, I guess that's true," he said. "I don't know anything about Ryder's affairs, you know—I simply hear the gossip. Everyone says he is playing a bold game. You take my advice, and keep your money somewhere else. You have to be doubly careful because you have enemies."

"Enemies?" asked Lucy, in perplexity.

"Have you forgotten what Waterman said to you?" Montague asked.

"You don't mean to tell me," cried she, "that you think that Waterman would interfere with Mr. Ryder on my account."

"It sounds incredible, I know," said Montague, "but such things have happened before this. If anyone knew the inside stories of the battles that have shaken Wall Street, he would find that many of them had some such beginning."

Montague said this casually, and with nothing in particular in mind. He was not watching his friend closely, and he did not see the effect which his words had produced upon her. He led the conversation into other channels; and he had entirely forgotten the matter the next day, when he received a telephone call from Lucy.

It had been a week since he had written to Smith and Hanson, the lawyers, in regard to the sale of her stock. "Allan," she asked, "no letter from those people yet?"

"Nothing at all," he answered.

"I was talking about it with a friend this morning, and he made a suggestion that I thought was important. Don't you think it might be well to find out whom they are representing?"

"What good would that do?" asked Montague.

"It might help us to get an idea of the prospects," said she. "I fancy they know who wants to sell the stock, and we ought to know who is thinking of buying it. Suppose you write them that you don't care to negotiate with agents."

"But I am in no position to do that," said Montague. "I have already set the people a figure, and they have not replied. We should only weaken our position by writing again. It would be much better to try to interest someone else."

"But I would like to know very much who made that offer," Lucy insisted. "I have heard rumours about the stock, and I really would like to know."

She reiterated this statement several times, and seemed to be very keen about it; Montague wondered a little who had been talking to her, and what she had heard. But warned by what the Major had told him, he did not ask these questions over the 'phone. He answered, finally, "I think you are making a mistake, but I will do what you wish."

So he sat down and wrote a note to Messrs. Smith and Hanson, and said that he would like to have a consultation with a member of their firm. He sent this note by messenger, and an hour or so later a wiry little person, with a much-wrinkled face and a shrewd look in his eyes, came into his office and introduced himself as Mr. Hanson.

"I have been talking with my client about the matter of the Northern Mississippi stock," said Montague. "You know, perhaps, that this road was organised under somewhat unusual circumstances; most of the stockholders were personal friends of our family. For this reason my client would prefer not to deal with an agent, if it can possibly be arranged. I wish to find out whether your client would consent to deal directly with the owner of the stock."

Montague finished what he had to say, although while he was speaking he noticed that Mr. Hanson was staring at him with very evident astonishment. Before he finished, this had changed to a slight sneer.

"What kind of a trick is this you are trying to play on me?" the man demanded.

Montague was too much taken aback to be angry. He simply stared. "I don't understand you," he said.

"You don't, eh?" said the other, laughing in his face. "Well, it seems I know more than you think I do."

"What do you mean?" asked Montague.

"Your client no longer has the stock that you are talking about," said the other.

Montague caught his breath. "No longer has the stock!" he gasped.

"Of course not," said Hanson. "She sold it three days ago." Then, unable to deny himself the satisfaction, he added, "She sold it to Stanley Ryder. And if you want to know any more about it, she sold it for a hundred and sixty thousand dollars, and he gave her a six months' note for a hundred and forty thousand."

Montague was utterly dumfounded. He could do nothing but stare.

It was evident to the other man that his emotion was genuine, and he smiled sarcastically. "Evidently, Mr. Montague," he said, "you have been permitting your client to take advantage of you."

Montague caught himself together, and bowed politely. "I owe you an apology, Mr. Hanson," he said, in a low voice. "I can only assure you that I was entirely helpless in the matter."

Then he rose and bade the man good morning.

When the door of his office was closed, he caught at the chair by his desk to steady himself, and stood staring in front of him. "To Stanley Ryder!" he gasped.

He turned to the 'phone, and called up his friend.

"Lucy," he said, "is it true that you have sold that stock?"

He heard her give a gasp. "Answer me!" he cried.

"Allan," she began, "you are going to be angry with me—"

"Please answer me!" he cried again. "Have you sold that stock?"

"Yes, Allan," she said, "I didn't mean—"

"I don't care to discuss the matter on the telephone," he said. "I will stop in to see you this afternoon on my way home. Please be in, because it is important." And then he hung up the receiver.

He called at the time he had set, and Lucy was waiting for him. She looked pale, and very much distressed. She sat in a chair, and neither arose to greet him nor spoke to him, but simply gazed into his face.

It was a very sombre face. "This thing has given me a great deal of pain," said Montague; "and I don't want to prolong it any more than necessary. I have thought the matter over, and my mind is made up, so there need be no discussion. It will not be possible for me to have anything further to do with your affairs."

Lucy gave a gasp: "Oh, Allan!"

He had a valise containing all her papers. "I have brought everything up to date," he said. "There are all the accounts, and the correspondence. Anyone will be able to find exactly how things stand."

"Allan," she said, "this is really cruel."

"I am very sorry," he answered, "but there is nothing else that I can do."

"But did I not have a right to sell that stock to Stanley Ryder?" she cried.

"You had a perfect right to sell it to anyone you pleased," he said. "But you had no right to ask me to take charge of your affairs, and then to keep me in the dark about what you had done."

"But, Allan," she protested, "I only sold it three days ago."

"I know that perfectly well," he said; "but the moment you made up your mind to sell it, it was your business to tell me. That, however, is not the point. You tried to use me as a cat's-paw to pull chestnuts out of the fire for Stanley Ryder."

He saw her wince under the words. "Is it not true?" he demanded. "Was it not he who told you to have me try to get that information?"

"Yes, Allan, of course it was he," said Lucy. "But don't you see my plight? I am not a business woman, and I did not realise—"

"You realised that you were not dealing frankly with me," he said. "That is all that I care about, and that is why I am not willing to continue to represent you. Stanley Ryder has bought your stock, and Stanley Ryder will have to be your adviser in the future."

He had not meant to discuss the matter with her any further, but he saw how profoundly he had hurt her, and the old bond between them held him still.

"Can't you understand what you did to me, Lucy?" he exclaimed. "Imagine my position, talking to Mr. Hanson, I knowing nothing and he knowing everything. He knew what you had been paid, and he even knew that you had taken a note."

Lucy stared at Montague with wide-open eyes. "Allan!" she gasped.

"You see what it means," he said. "I told you that you could not keep your doings secret. Now it will only be a matter of a few days before everybody who knows will be whispering that you have permitted Stanley Ryder to do this for you."

There was a long silence. Lucy sat staring before her. Then suddenly she faced Montague.

"Allan!" she cried. "Surely—you understand!"

She burst out violently, "I had a right to sell that stock! Ryder needed it. He is going to organise a syndicate, and develop the property. It was a simple matter of business."

"I have no doubt of it, Lucy," said Montague, in a low voice, "but how will you persuade the world of that? I told you what would happen if you permitted yourself to be intimate with a man like Stanley Ryder. You will find out too late what it means. Certainly that incident with Waterman ought to have opened your eyes to what people are saying."

Lucy gave a start, and gazed at him with horror in her eyes. "Allan!" she panted.

"What is it?" he asked.

"Do you mean to tell me that happened to me because Stanley Ryder is my friend?"

"Of course I do," said he. "Waterman had heard the gossip, and he thought that if Ryder was a rich man, he was a ten-times-richer man."

Montague could see the colour mount swiftly over Lucy's throat and face. She stood twisting her hands together nervously. "Oh, Allan!" she said. "That is monstrous!"

"It is not of my making. It is the way the world is. I found it out myself, and I tried to point it out to you."

"But it is horrible!" she cried. "I will not believe it. I will not yield to such things. I will not be coward enough to give up a friend for such a motive!"

"I know the feeling," said Montague. "I'd stand by you, if it were another man than Stanley Ryder. But I know him better than you, I believe."

"You don't, Allan, you can't!" she protested. "I tell you he is a good man! He is a man nobody understands—"

Montague shrugged his shoulders. "It is possible," he said. "I have heard that before. Many men are better than the things they do in this world; at any rate, they like to persuade themselves that they are. But you have no right to wreck your life out of pity for Ryder. He has made his own reputation, and if he had any real care for you, he would not ask you to sacrifice yourself to it."

"He did not ask me to," said Lucy. "What I have done, I have done of my own free will. I believe in him, and I will not believe the horrible things that you tell me."

"Very well," said Montague, "then you will have to go your own way."

He spoke calmly, though really his heart was wrung with grief. He knew exactly the sort of conversation by which Stanley Ryder had brought Lucy to this state of mind. He could have shattered the beautiful image of himself which Ryder had conjured up; but he could not bear to do it. Perhaps it was an instinct which guided him—he knew that Lucy was in love with the man, and that no facts that anyone could bring would make any difference to her. All he could say was, "You will have to find out for yourself."

And then, with one more look at her pitiful face of misery, he turned and went away, without even touching her hand.



CHAPTER VIII



It was now well on in May, and most of the people of Montague's acquaintance had moved out to their country places; and those who were chained to their desks had yachts or automobiles or private cars, and made the trip into the country every afternoon. Montague was invited to spend another week at Eldridge Devon's, where Alice had been for a week; but he could not spare the time until Saturday afternoon, when he made the trip up the Hudson in Devon's new three-hundred-foot steam-yacht, the Triton. Some unkind person had described Devon to Montague as "a human yawn"; but he appeared to have a very keen interest in life that Saturday afternoon. He had been seized by a sudden conviction that a new and but little advertised automobile had proven its superiority to any of the seventeen cars which he at present maintained in his establishment. He had got three of these new cars, and while Montague sat upon the quarter-deck of the Triton and gazed at the magnificent scenery of the river, he had in his ear the monotonous hum of Devon's voice, discussing annular ball-bearings and water-jacketed cylinders.

One of the new cars met them at Devon's private pier, and swept them over the hill to the mansion. The Devon place had never looked more wonderful to Montague than it did just then, with fruit trees in full blossom, and the wonder of springtime upon everything. For miles about one might see hillsides that were one unbroken stretch of luscious green lawn. But alas, Eldridge Devon had no interest in these hills, except to pursue a golf-ball over them. Montague never felt more keenly the pitiful quality of the people among whom he found himself than when he stood upon the portico of this house—a portico huge enough to belong to some fairy palace in a dream—and gazed at the sweeping vista of the Hudson over the heads of Mrs. Billy Alden and several of her cronies, playing bridge.

* * *

After luncheon, he went for a stroll with Alice, and she told him how she had been passing the time. "Young Curtiss was here for a couple of days," she said.

"General Prentice's nephew?" he asked.

"Yes. He told me he had met you," said she. "What do you think of him?"

"He struck me as a sensible chap," said Montague.

"I like him very much," said Alice. "I think we shall be friends. He is interesting to talk to; you know he was in a militia regiment that went to Cuba, and also he's been a cowboy, and all sorts of exciting things. We took a walk the other morning, and he told me some of his adventures. They say he's quite a successful lawyer."

"He is in a very successful firm," said Montague. "And he'd hardly have got there unless he had ability."

"He's a great friend of Laura Hegan's," said Alice. "She was over here to spend the day. She doesn't approve of many people, so that is a compliment."

Montague spoke of a visit which he had paid to Laura Hegan, at one of the neighbouring estates.

"I had quite a talk with her," said Alice. "And she invited me to luncheon, and took me driving. I like her better than I thought I would. Don't you like her, Allan?"

"I couldn't say that I really know her," said Montague. "I thought I might like her, but she did not happen to like me."

"But how could that be?" asked the girl.

Montague smiled. "Tastes are different," he said.

"But there must be some reason," protested Alice. "For she looks at many things in the same way that you do. I told her I thought she would be interested to talk to you."

"What did she say?" asked the other.

"She didn't say anything," answered Alice; and then suddenly she turned to him. "I am sure you must know some reason. I wish you would tell me."

"I don't know anything definite," Montague answered. "I have always imagined it had to do with Mrs. Winnie."

"With Mrs. Winnie!" exclaimed Alice, in perplexing wonder.

"I suppose she heard gossip and believed it," he added.

"But that is a shame!" exclaimed the girl. "Why don't you tell her the truth?"

"I tell her?" laughed Montague. "I have no reason for telling her. She doesn't care anything in particular about me."

He was silent for a moment or two. "I thought of it once or twice," he said. "For it made me rather angry at first. I saw myself going up to her, and startling her with the statement, 'What you believe about me is not true!' Then again, I thought I might write her a letter and tell her. But of course it would be absurd; she would never acknowledge that she had believed anything, and she would think I was impertinent."

"I don't believe she would do anything of the sort," Alice answered. "At least, not if she meant what she said to me. She was talking about people one met in Society, and how tiresome and conventional it all was. 'No one ever speaks the truth or deals frankly with you,' she said. 'All the men spend their time in paying you compliments about your looks. They think that is all a woman cares about. The more I come to know them, the less I think of them.'"

"That's just it," said Montague. "One cannot feel comfortable knowing a girl in her position. Her father is powerful, and some day she will be enormously rich herself; and the people who gather about her are seeking to make use of her. I was interested in her when I first met her. But when I learned more about the world in which she lives, I shrank from even talking to her."

"But that is rather unfair to her," said Alice. "Suppose all decent people felt that way. And she is really quite easy to know. She told me about some charities she is interested in. She goes down into the slums, on the East Side, and teaches poor children. It seemed to me a wonderfully daring sort of thing, but she laughed when I said so. She says those people are just the same as other people, when you come to know them; you get used to their ways, and then it does not seem so terrible and far off."

"I imagine it would be so," said Montague, with a smile.

"Her father came over to meet her," Alice added. "She said that was the first time he had been out of the city in six months. Just fancy working so hard, and with all the money he has! What in the world do you suppose he wants more for?"

"I don't suppose it is the money," said he. "It's the power. And when you have so much money, you have to work hard to keep other people from taking it away from you."

"He certainly looks as if he ought to be able to protect himself," said the girl. "His face is so grim and forbidding. You would hardly think he could smile, to look at him."

"He is very pleasant, when you know him," said Montague.

"He remembered you, and asked about you," said she. "Wasn't it he who was going to buy Lucy Dupree's stock?"

"I spoke to him about it," he answered, "but nothing came of it."

There was a moment's pause. "Allan," said Alice, suddenly, "what is this I hear about Lucy?"

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"People are talking about her and Mr. Ryder. I overheard Mrs. Landis yesterday. It's outrageous!"

Montague did hot know what to say. "What can I do?" he asked.

"I don't know," said Alice, "but I think that Victoria Landis is a horrible woman. I know she herself does exactly as she pleases. And she tells such shocking stories—"

Montague said nothing.

"Tell me," asked the other, after a pause, "because you've given up Lucy's business affairs, are we to have nothing to do with her at all?"

"I don't know," he answered. "I don't imagine she will care to see me. I have told her about the mistake she's making, and she chooses to go her own way. So what more can I do?"

* * *

That evening Montague found himself settled on a sofa next to Mrs. Billy Alden. "What's this I hear about your friend, Mrs. Taylor?" she asked.

"I don't know," said he, abruptly.

"The fascinating widow seems to be throwing herself away," continued the other.

"What makes you say that?" he asked.

"Vivie Patton told me," said she. "She's an old flame of Stanley Ryder's, you know; and so I imagine it came directly from him."

Montague was dumb; he could think of nothing to say.

"It's too bad," said Mrs. Billy. "She is really a charming creature. And it will hurt her, you know—she is a stranger, and it's a trifle too sudden. Is that the Mississippi way?"

Montague forced himself to say, "Lucy is her own mistress." But his feeble impulse toward conversation was checked by Mrs. Billy's prompt response, "Vivie said she was Stanley Ryder's."

"I understand how you feel," continued the great lady, after a pause. "Everybody will be talking about it.—Your friend Reggie Mann heard what Vivie said, and he will see to that."

"Reggie Mann is no friend of mine," said Montague, abruptly.

There was a pause. "How in the world do you stand that man?" he asked, by way of changing the conversation.

"Oh, Reggie fills his place," was the reply. And Mrs. Billy gazed about the room. "You see all these women?" she said. "Take them in the morning and put half a dozen of them together in one room; they all hate each other like poison, and there are no men around, and there is nothing to do; and how are you to keep them from quarrelling?"

"Is that Reggie's role?" asked the other.

"Precisely. He sees a spark fly, and he jumps up and cracks a joke. It doesn't make any difference what he does—I've known him to crow like a rooster, or stumble over his own feet—anything to raise a laugh."

"Aren't you afraid these epigrams may reach your victim?" asked Montague, with a smile.

"That is what they are intended to do," was the reply.

"I judge you have not many enemies," added Mrs. Billy, after a pause.

"No especial ones," said he.

"Well," said she, "you should cultivate some. Enemies are the spice of life. I mean it, really," she declared, as she saw him smile.

"I had never thought of it," said he.

"Have you never known what it is to get into a really good fight? You see, you are conventional, and you don't like to acknowledge it. But what is there that wakes one up more than a good, vigorous hatred? Some day you will realise it—the chief zest in life is to go after somebody who hates you, and to get him down and see him squirm."

"But suppose he gets you down?" interposed Montague.

"Ah!" said she, "you mustn't let him! That is what you go into the fight for. Get after him, and do him first."

"It sounds rather barbarous," said he.

"On the contrary," was the answer, "it's the highest reach of civilisation. That is what Society is for—the cultivation of the art of hatred. It is the survival of the fittest in a new realm. You study your victim, you find out his weaknesses and his foibles, and you know just where to plant your sting. You learn what he wants, and you take it away from him. You choose your allies carefully, and you surround him and overwhelm him; then when you get through with him, you go after another."

And Mrs. Billy glanced about her at the exquisite assemblage in Mrs. Devon's Louis Seize drawing-room. "What do you suppose these people are here for to-night?" she asked.



CHAPTER IX



A weekor two had passed, when one day Oliver called his brother on the 'phone. "Have you or Alice any engagement this evening?" he asked. "I want to bring a friend around to dinner."

"Who is it?" inquired Montague.

"Nobody you have heard of," said Oliver. "But I want you to meet him. You will think he's rather queer, but I will explain to you afterwards. Tell Alice to take my word for him."

Montague delivered the message, and at seven o'clock they went downstairs. In the reception room they met Oliver and his friend, and it was all that Montague could do to repress a look of consternation.

The name of the personage was Mr. Gamble. He was a little man, a trifle over five feet high, and so fat that one wondered how he could get about alone; his chin and neck were a series of rolls of fat. His face was round like a full moon, and out of it looked two little eyes like those of a pig. It was only after studying them for a while that one discovered that they twinkled shrewdly.

Mr. Gamble was altogether the vulgarest-looking personage that Alice Montague had ever met. He put out a fat little hand to her, and she touched it gingerly, and then gazed at Oliver and his brother in helpless dismay.

"Good evening. Good evening," he began volubly. "I am charmed to meet you. Mr. Montague, I have heard so much about you from your brother that I feel as if we were old friends."

There was a moment's pause. "Shall we go into the dining-room?" asked Montague.

He did not much relish the stares which would follow them, but he could see no way out of the difficulty. They went into the room and seated themselves, Montague wondering in a flash whether Mr. Gamble's arms would be long enough to reach to the table in front of him.

"A warm evening," he said, puffing slightly. "I have been on the train all day."

"Mr. Gamble comes from Pittsburg," interposed Oliver.

"Indeed?" said Montague, striving to make conversation. "Are you in business there?"

"No, I am out of business," said Mr. Gamble, with a smile. "Made my pile, so to speak, and got out. I want to see the world a bit before I get too old."

The waiter came to take their orders; in the meantime Montague darted an indignant glance at his brother, who sat and smiled serenely. Then Montague caught Alice's eye, and he could almost hear her saying to him, "What in the world am I going to talk about?"

But it proved not very difficult to talk with the gentleman from Pittsburg. He appeared to know all the gossip of the Metropolis, and he cheerfully supplied the topics of conversation. He had been to Palm Beach and Hot Springs during the winter, and told about what he had seen there; he was going to Newport in the summer, and he talked about the prospects there. If he had the slightest suspicion of the fact that all his conversation was not supremely interesting to Montague and his cousin, he gave no hint of it.

After he had disposed of the elaborate dinner which Oliver ordered, Mr. Gamble proposed that they visit one of the theatres. He had a box all ready, it seemed, and Oliver accepted for Alice before Montague could say a word for her. He spoke for himself, however,—he had important work to do, and must be excused.

He went upstairs and shook off his annoyance and plunged into his work. Sometime after midnight, when he had finished, he went out for a breath of fresh air, and as he returned he found Oliver and his friend standing in the lobby of the hotel.

"How do you do, Mr. Montague?" said Gamble. "Glad to see you again."

"Alice has just gone upstairs," said Oliver. "We were going to sit in the cafe awhile. Will you join us?"

"Yes, do," said Mr. Gamble, cordially.

Montague went because he wanted to have a talk with Oliver before he went to bed that night.

"Do you know Dick Ingham?" asked Mr. Gamble, as they seated themselves at a table.

"The Steel man, you mean?" asked Montague. "No, I never met him."

"We were talking about him," said the other. "Poor chap—it really was hard luck, you know. It wasn't his fault. Did you ever hear the true story?"

"No," said Montague, but he knew to what the other referred. Ingham was one of the "Steel crowd," as they were called, and he had been president of the Trust until a scandal had forced his resignation.

"He is an old friend of mine," said Gamble; "he told me all about it. It began in Paris—some newspaper woman tried to blackmail him, and he had her put in jail for three months. And when she got out again, then the papers at home began to get stories about poor Ingham's cutting up. And the public went wild, and they made him resign—just imagine it!"

Gamble chuckled so violently that he was seized by a coughing spell, and had to signal for a glass of water.

"They've got a new scandal on their hands now," said Oliver.

"They're a lively crowd, the Steel fellows," laughed the other. "They want to make Davidson resign, too, but he'll fight them. He knows too much! You should hear his story!"

"I imagine it's not a very savoury one," said Montague, for lack of something to say.

"It's too bad," said the other, earnestly. "I have talked to them sometimes, but it don't do any good. I remember Davidson one night: 'Jim,' says he, 'a fellow gets a whole lot of money, and he buys him everything he wants, until at last he buys a woman, and then his trouble begins. If you're buying pictures, there's an end to it—you get your walls covered sooner or later. But you never can satisfy a woman.'" And Mr. Gamble shook his head. "Too bad, too bad," he repeated.

"Were you in the steel business yourself?" asked Montague, politely.

"No, no, oil was my line. I've been fighting the Trust, and last year they bought me out, and now I'm seeing the world."

Mr. Gamble relapsed into thought again. "I never went in for that sort of thing myself," he said meditatively; "I am a married man, I am, and one woman is enough for me."

"Is your family in New York?" asked Montague, in an effort to change the subject.

"No, no, they live in Pittsburg," was the answer. "I've got four daughters—all in college. They're stunning girls, I tell you—I'd like you to meet them, Mr. Montague."

"I should be pleased," said Montague, writhing inwardly. But a few minutes later, to his immense relief, Mr. Gamble arose, and bade him good night.

Montague saw him clamber laboriously into his automobile, and then he turned to his brother.

"Oliver," he asked, "what in the devil does this mean?"

"What mean?" asked Oliver, innocently.

"That man," exclaimed the other.

"Why, I thought you would like to meet him," said Oliver; "he is an interesting chap."

"I am in no mood for fooling," said his brother, angrily. "Why in the world should you insult Alice by introducing such a man to her?"

"Why, you are talking nonsense!" exclaimed Oliver; "he knows the best people—"

"Where did you meet him?" asked Montague.

"Mrs. Landis introduced him to me first. She met him through a cousin of hers, a naval officer. He has been living in Brooklyn this winter. He knows all the navy people."

"What is it, anyway?" demanded Montague, impatiently. "Is it some business affair that you are interested in?"

"No, no," said Oliver, smiling cheerfully—"purely social. He wants to be introduced about, you know."

"Are you going to put him into Society, by any chance?" asked the other, sarcastically.

"You are warm, as the children say," laughed his brother.

Montague stared at him. "Oliver, you don't mean it," he said. "That fellow in Society!"

"Sure," said Oliver, "if he wants to. Why not?"

"But his wife and his daughters!" exclaimed the other.

"Oh, that's not it—the family stays in Pittsburg. It's only himself this time. All the same," Oliver added, after a pause, "I'd like to wager you that if you were to meet Jim Gamble's four prize daughters, you'd find it hard to tell them from the real thing. They've been to a swell boarding-school, and they've had everything that money can buy them. My God, but I'm tired of hearing about their accomplishments!"

"But do you mean to tell me," the other protested, "that your friends will stand for a man like that?"

"Some of them will. He's got barrels of money, you know. And he understands the situation perfectly—he won't make many mistakes."

"But what in the world does he want?"

"Leave that to him."

"And you," demanded Montague; "you are getting money for this?"

Oliver smiled a long and inscrutable smile. "You don't imagine that I'm in love with him, I trust. I thought you'd be interested to see the game, that's why I introduced him."

"That's all very well," said the other. "But you have no right to inflict such a man upon Alice."

"Oh, stuff!" said Oliver. "She'll meet him at Newport this summer, anyway. How could I introduce him anywhere else, if I wasn't willing to introduce him here? He won't hurt Alice. He gave her a good time this evening, and I wager she'll like him before he gets through. He's really a good-natured chap; the chief trouble with him is that he gets confidential."

Montague relapsed into silence, and Oliver changed the subject. "It seems too bad about Lucy," he said. "Is there nothing we can do about it?"

"Nothing," said the other.

"She is simply ruining herself," said Oliver. "I've been trying to get Reggie Mann to have her introduced to Mrs. Devon, but he says he wouldn't dare to take the risk."

"No, I presume not," said Montague.

"It's a shame," said Oliver. "I thought Mrs. Billy Alden would ask her to Newport this summer, but now I don't believe she'll have a thing to do with her. Lucy will find she knows nobody except Stanley Ryder and his crowd. She has simply thrown herself away."

Montague shrugged his shoulders. "That's Lucy's way," he said.

"I suppose she'll have a good time," added the other. "Ryder is generous, at any rate."

"I hope so," said Montague.

"They say he's making barrels of money," said Oliver; then he added, longingly, "My God, I wish I had a trust company to play with!"

"Why a trust company particularly?" asked the other.

"It's the easiest graft that's going," said Oliver. "It's some dodge or other by which they evade the banking laws, and the money comes rolling in in floods. You've noticed their advertisements, I suppose?"

"I have noticed them," said Montague.

"He is adding something over a million a month, I hear."

"It sounds very attractive," said the other; and added, drily, "I suppose Ryder feels as if he owned it all."

"He might just as well own it," was the reply. "If I were going into Wall Street to make money, I'd rather have the control of fifty millions than the absolute ownership of ten."

"By the way," Oliver remarked after a moment, "the Prentices have asked Alice up to Newport. Alice seems to be quite taken with that young chap, Curtiss."

"He comes around a good deal," said Montague. "He seems a very decent fellow."

"No doubt," said the other. "But he hasn't enough money to take care of a girl like Alice."

"Well," he replied, "that's a question for Alice to consider."



CHAPTER X



ONE day, a month or so later, Montague, to his great surprise, received a letter from Stanley Ryder.

"Could you make it convenient to call at my office sometime this afternoon?" it read. "I wish to talk over with you a business proposition which I believe you will find of great advantage to yourself."

"I suppose he wants to buy my Northern Mississippi stock," he said to himself, as he called up Ryder on the 'phone, and made an appointment.

It was the first time that he had ever been inside the building of the Gotham Trust Company, and he gazed about him at the overwhelming magnificence—huge gates of bronze and walls of exquisite marble. Ryder's own office was elaborate and splendid, and he himself a picture of aristocratic elegance.

He greeted Montague cordially, and talked for a few minutes about the state of the market, and the business situation, in the meantime twirling a pencil in his hand and watching his visitor narrowly. At last he began, "Mr. Montague, I have for some time been working over a plan which I think will interest you."

"I shall be very pleased to hear of it," said Montague.

"Of course, you know," said Ryder, "that I bought from Mrs. Taylor her holdings in the Northern Mississippi Railroad. I bought them because I was of the opinion that the road ought to be developed, and I believed that I could induce someone to take the matter up. I have found the right parties, I think, and the plans are now being worked out."

"Indeed," said the other, with interest.

"The idea, Mr. Montague, is to extend the railroad according to the old plan, with which you are familiar. Before we took the matter up, we approached the holders of the remainder of the stock, most of whom, I suppose, are known to you. We made them, through our agents, a proposition to buy their stock at what we considered a fair price; and we have purchased about five thousand shares additional. The prices quoted on the balance were more than we cared to pay, in consideration of the very great cost of the improvements we proposed to undertake. Our idea is now to make a new proposition to these other shareholders. The annual stockholders' meeting takes place next month. At this meeting will be brought up the project for the issue of twenty thousand additional shares, with the understanding that as much of this new stock as is not taken by the present shareholders is to go to us. As I assume that few of them will take their allotments, that will give us control of the road; you can understand, of course, that our syndicate would not undertake the venture unless it could obtain control."

Montague nodded his assent to this.

"At this meeting," said Ryder, "we shall propose a ticket of our own for the new board of directors. We are in hopes that as our proposition will be in the interest of every stockholder, this ticket will be elected. We believe that the road needs a new policy, and a new management entirely; if a majority of the stockholders can be brought to our point of view, we shall take control, and put in a new president."

Ryder paused for a moment, to let this information sink into his auditor's mind; then, fixing his gaze upon him narrowly, he continued: "What I wished to see you about, Mr. Montague, was to make you a proposal to assist us in putting through this project. We should like you, in the first place, to act as our representative, in consultation with our regular attorneys. We should like you to interview privately the stockholders of the road, and explain to them our projects, and vouch for our good intentions. If you can see your way to undertake this work for us, we should be glad to place you upon the proposed board of directors; and as soon as we have matters in our hands, we should ask you to become president of the road."

Montague gave an inward start; but practice had taught him to keep from letting his surprise manifest itself very much. He sat for a minute in thought.

"Mr. Ryder," he said, "I am a little surprised at such a proposition from you, seeing that you know so little about me—"

"I know more than you suppose, Mr. Montague," said the other, with a smile. "You may rest assured that I have not broached such a matter to you without making inquiries, and satisfying myself that you were the proper person."

"It is very pleasant to be told that," said Montague. "But I must remind you, also, that I am not a railroad man, and have had no experience whatever in such matters—"

"It is not necessary that you should be a railroad man," was the answer. "One can hire talent of that kind at market prices. What we wish is a man of careful and conservative temper, and, above all, a man of thorough-going honesty; someone who will be capable of winning the confidence of the stockholders, and of keeping it. It seemed to us that you possessed these qualifications. Also, of course, you have the advantage of being familiar with the neighbourhood, and of knowing thoroughly the local conditions."

Montague thought for a while longer. "The offer is a very flattering one," he said, "and I need hardly tell you that it interests me. But before I could properly consider the matter, there is one thing I should have to know—that is, who are the members of this syndicate."

"Why would it be necessary to know that?" asked the other.

"Because I am to lend my reputation to their project, and I should have to know the character of the men that I was dealing with." Montague was gazing straight into the other's eyes.

"You will understand, of course," replied Ryder, "that in a matter of this sort it is necessary to proceed with caution. We cannot afford to talk about what we are going to do. We have enemies who will do what they can to check us at every step."

"Whatever you tell me will, of course, be confidential," said Montague.

"I understand that perfectly well," was the reply. "But I wished first to get some idea of your attitude toward the project—whether or not you would be at liberty to take up this work and to devote yourself to it."

"I can see no reason why I should not," Montague answered.

"It seems to me," said Ryder, "that the proposition can be judged largely upon its own merits. It is a proposition to put through an important public improvement; a road which is in a broken-down and practically bankrupt condition is to be taken up, and thoroughly reorganised, and put upon its feet. It is to have a vigorous and honest administration, a new and adequate equipment, and a new source of traffic. The business of the Mississippi Steel Company, as you doubtless know, is growing with extraordinary rapidity. All this, it seems to me, is a work about the advisability of which there can be no question."

"That is very true," said Montague, "and I will meet the persons who are interested and talk out matters with them; and if their plans are such as I can approve, I should be very glad to join with them, and to do everything in my power to make a success of the enterprise. As you doubtless know, I have five hundred shares of the stock myself, and I should be glad to become a member of the syndicate."

"That is what I had in mind to propose to you," said the other. "I anticipate no difficulty in satisfying you—the project is largely of my own originating, and my own reputation will be behind it. The Gotham Trust Company will lend its credit to the enterprise so far as possible."

Ryder said this with just a trifle of hauteur, and Montague felt that perhaps he had spoken too strenuously. No one could sit in Ryder's office and not be impressed by its atmosphere of magnificence; after all, it was here, and its seventy or eighty million dollars of deposits were real, and this serene and aristocratic gentleman was the master of them. And what reason had Montague for his hesitation, except the gossip of idle and cynical Society people?

Whatever doubts he himself might have, he needed to reflect but a moment to realise that his friends in Mississippi would not share them. If he went back home with the name of Stanley Ryder and the Gotham Trust Company to back him, he would come as a conqueror with tidings of triumph, and all the old friends of the family would rush to follow his suggestions.

Ryder waited awhile, perhaps to let these reflections sink in. Finally he continued: "I presume, Mr. Montague, that you know something about the Mississippi Steel Company. The steel situation is a peculiar one. Prices are kept at an altogether artificial level, and there is room for large profits to competitors of the Trust. But those who go into the business commonly find themselves unexpectedly handicapped. They cannot get the credit they want; orders overwhelm them in floods, but Wall Street will not put up money to help them. They find all kinds of powerful interests arrayed against them; there are raids upon their securities in the market, and mysterious rumours begin to circulate. They find suits brought against them which tend to injure their credit. And sometimes they will find important papers missing, important witnesses sailing for Europe, and so on. Then their most efficient employees will be bought up; their very bookkeepers and office-boys will be bribed, and all the secrets of their business passed on to their enemies. They will find that the railroads do not treat them squarely; cars will be slow in coming, and all kinds of petty annoyances will be practised. You know what the rebate is, and you can imagine the part which that plays. In these and a hundred other ways, the path of the independent steel manufacturer is made difficult. And now, Mr. Montague, this is a project to extend a railroad which will be of vast service to the chief competitor of the Steel Trust. I believe that you are man of the world enough to realise that this improvement would have been made long ago, if the Steel Trust had not been able to prevent it. And now, the time has come when that project is to be put through in spite of every opposition that the Trust can bring; and I have come to you because I believe that you are a man to be counted on in such a fight."

"I understand you," said Montague, quietly; "and you are right in your supposition."

"Very well," said Ryder. "Then I will tell you that the syndicate of which I speak is composed of myself and John S. Price, who has recently acquired control of the Mississippi Steel Company. You will find out without difficulty what Price's reputation is; he is the one man in the country who has made any real headway against the Trust. The business of the Mississippi Company has almost doubled in the past year, and there is no limit to what it can do, except the size of the plant and the ability of the railroads to handle its product. This new plan would have been taken up through the Company, but for the fact that the Company's capital and credit is involved in elaborate extensions. Price has furnished some of the capital personally, and I have raised the balance; and what we want now is an honest man to whom we can entrust this most important project, a man who will take the road in hand and put it on its feet, and make it of some service in the community. You are the man we have selected, and if the proposition appeals to you, why, we are ready to do business with you without delay."

For a minute or two Montague was silent; then he said: "I appreciate your confidence, Mr. Ryder, and what you say appeals to me. But the matter is a very important one to me, as you can readily understand, and so I will ask you to give me until to-morrow to make up my mind."

"Very well," said Ryder.

Montague's first thought was of General Prentice. "Come to me any time you need advice," the General had said; so Montague went down to his office. "Do you know anything about John S. Price?" he asked.

"I don't know him very well personally," was the reply. "I know him by reputation. He is a daring Wall Street operator, and he's been very successful, I am told."

"Price began life as a cowboy, I understand," continued the General, after a pause. "Then he went in for mines. Ten or fifteen years ago we used to know him as a silver man. Several years ago there was a report that he had been raiding Mississippi Steel, and had got control. That was rather startling news, for everybody knew that the Trust was after it. He seems to have fought them to a standstill."

"That sounds interesting," said Montague.

"Price was brought up in a rough school," said the General, with a smile. "He has a tongue like a whip-lash. I remember once I attended a creditors' meeting of the American Stove Company, which had got into trouble, and Price started off from the word go. 'Mr. Chairman,' he said, 'when I come into the office of an industrial corporation, and see a stock ticker behind the president's chair with the carpet worn threadbare in front of it, I know what's the matter with that corporation without asking another word.'"

"What do you want to know about him for?" asked the General, after he had got through laughing over this recollection.

"It's a case I'm concerned in," the other answered.

"I tell you who knows about him," said the General. "Harry Curtiss. William E. Davenant has done law business for Price."

"Is that so?" said Montague. "Then probably I shall meet Harry."

"I can tell you a better person yet," said the other, after a moment's thought. "Ask your friend Mrs. Alden; she knows Price intimately, I believe."

So Montague sent up a note to Mrs. Billy, and the reply came, "Come up to dinner. I am not going out." And so, late in the afternoon, he was ensconced in a big leather armchair in Mrs. Billy's private drawing-room, and listening to an account of the owner of the Mississippi Steel Company.

"Johnny Price?" said the great lady. "Yes, I know him. It all depends whether you are going to have him for a friend or an enemy. His mother was Irish, and he is built after her. If he happens to take a fancy to you, he'll die for you; and if you make him hate you, you will hear a greater variety of epithets than you ever supposed the language contained.—I first met him in Washington," Mrs. Billy went on, reminiscently; "that was fifteen years ago, when my brother was in Congress. I think I told you once how Davy paid forty thousand dollars for the nomination, and went to Congress. It was the year of a Democratic landslide, and they could have elected Reggie Mann if they had felt like it. I went to Washington to live the next winter, and Price was there with a whole army of lobbyists, fighting for free silver. That was before the craze, you know, when silver was respectable; and Price was the Silver King. I saw the inside of American government that winter, I can assure you."

"Tell me about it," said Montague.

"The Democratic party had been elected on a low tariff platform," said Mrs. Billy; "and it sold out bag and baggage to the corporations. Money was as free as water—my brother could have got his forty thousand back three times over. It was the Steel crowd that bossed the job, you know—William Roberts used to come down from Pittsburg every two or three days, and he had a private telephone wire the rest of the time. I have always said it was the Steel Trust that clamped the tariff swindle on the American people, and that's held it there ever since."

"What did Price do with his silver mines?" asked Montague.

"He sold them," said she, "and just in the nick of time. He was on the inside in the campaign of '96, and I remember one night he came to dinner at our house and told us that the Republican party had raised ten or fifteen million dollars to buy the election. 'That's the end of silver,' he said, and he sold out that very month, and he's been freelancing it in Wall Street ever since."

"Have you met him yet?" asked Mrs. Billy, after a pause.

"Not yet," he answered.

"He's a character," said she. "I've heard Davy tell about the first time he struck New York—as a miner, with huge wads of greenbacks in his pockets. He spent his money like a 'coal-oil Johnny,' as the phrase is—a hundred-dollar bill for a shine, and that sort of thing. And he'd go on the wildest debauches; you can have no idea of it."

"Is he that kind of a man?" said Montague.

"He used to be," said the other. "But one day he had something the matter with him, and he went to a doctor, and the doctor told him something, I don't know what, and he shut down like a steel trap. Now he never drinks a drop, and he lives on one meal a day and a cup of coffee. But he still goes with the old crowd—I don't believe there is a politician or a sporting-man in town that Johnny Price does not know. He sits in their haunts and talks with them until all sorts of hours in the morning, but I can never get him to come to my dinner-parties. 'My people are human,' he will say; 'yours are sawdust.' Sometime, if you want to see New York, just get Johnny Price to take you about and introduce you to his bookmakers and burglars!"

Montague meditated for a while over his friend's picture. "Somehow or other," he said, "it doesn't sound much like the president of a hundred-million-dollar corporation."

"That's all right," said Mrs. Billy, "but Price will be at his desk bright and early the next morning, and every man in the office will be there, too. And if you think he won't have his wits about him, just you try to fool him on some deal, and see. Let me tell you a little that I know about the fight he has made with the Mississippi Steel Company." And she went on to tell. The upshot of her telling was that Montague borrowed the use of her desk and wrote a note to Stanley Ryder. "From my inquiries about John S. Price, I gather that he makes steel. With the understanding that I am to make a railroad and carry his steel, I have concluded to accept your proposition, subject, of course, to a satisfactory arrangement as to terms."



CHAPTER XI



THE next morning Montague had an interview with John S. Price in his Wall Street office, and was retained as counsel in connection with the new reorganisation. He accepted the offer, and in the afternoon he called by appointment at the law-offices of William E. Davenant.

The first person Montague met there was Harry Curtiss, who greeted him with eagerness. "I was pleased to death when I heard that you were in on this deal," said he; "we shall have some work to do together."

About the table in the consultation room of Davenant's offices were seated Ryder and Price, and Montague and Curtiss, and, finally, William E. Davenant. Davenant was one of the half-dozen highest-paid corporation lawyers in the Metropolis. He was a tall, lean man, whose clothing hung upon him like rags upon a scare-crow. One of his shoulders was a trifle higher than the other, and his long neck invariably hung forward, so that his thin, nervous face seemed always to be peering about. One had a sense of a pair of keen eyes, behind which a restless brain was constantly plotting. Some people rated Davenant as earning a quarter of a million a year, and it was his boast that no one who made money according to plans which he approved had ever been made to give any of it up.

In curious contrast was the figure of Price, who looked like a well-dressed pugilist. He was verging on stoutness, and his face was round, but underneath the superfluous flesh one could see the jaw of a man of iron will. It was easy to believe that Price had fought his way through life. He spoke sharply and to the point, and he laid bare the subject with a few quick strokes, as of a surgeon's knife.

The first question was as to Montague's errand in the South. There was no need of buying more stock of the road, for if they got the new stock they would have control, and that was all they needed. Montague was to see those holders of the stock whom he knew personally, and to represent to them that he had succeeded in interesting some Northern capitalists in the road, and that they would undertake the improvements on condition that their board of directors should be elected. Price produced a list of the new directors. They consisted of Montague and Curtiss and Ryder and himself; a cousin of the latter's, and two other men, who, as he phrased it, were "accustomed to help me in that way." That left two places to be filled by Montague from among the influential holders of the stock. "That always pleases," said Price, succinctly, "and at the same time we shall have an absolute majority."

There was to be voted an issue of a million dollars' worth of bonds, which the Gotham Trust Company would take; also a new issue of twenty thousand shares of stock, which was to be offered pro rata to the present stock-holders at fifty cents on the dollar. Montague was to state that his clients would take any which these stockholders did not want. He was to use every effort to keep the plan secret, and would make no attempt to obtain the stock-holders' list of the road. The reason for this came out a little later, when the subject of the old-time survey was broached.

"I must take steps to get hold of those plans," said Price. "In this, as well as everything else, we proceed upon the assumption that the present administration of the road is crooked."

The next matter to be considered was the charter. "When I get a charter for a railroad," said Price, "I get one that lets me do anything from building a toothpick factory to running flying-machines. But the fools who drew the charter of the Northern Mississippi got permission to build a railroad from Atkin to Opala. So we have to proceed to get an extension. While you are down there, Mr. Montague, you will see the job through with the Legislature."

Montague thought for a moment. "I don't believe that I have much influence with the Legislature," he began.

"That's all right," said Price, grimly. "We'll furnish the influence."

Here spoke Davenant. "It seems to me," he said, "that we can just as well arrange this matter without mentioning the Northern Mississippi Railroad at all. If the Steel people get wind of this, we are liable to have all sorts of trouble; the Governor is their man, as you know. The thing to do is to pass a blanket bill, providing that any public-service corporation whose charter antedates a certain period may extend its line within certain limits and under certain conditions, and so on. I think that I can draw a bill that will go through before anybody has an idea what it's about."

"Very good," said Price. "Do it that way."

And so they went, from point to point. Price laid down Montague's own course of procedure in a few brief sentences. They had just two weeks before the stockholders' meeting, and it was arranged that he should start for Mississippi upon the following day.

When the conference was over, Montague rode up town with Harry Curtiss.

"What was that Davenant said about the Governor?" he asked, when they were seated in the train.

"Governor Hannis, you mean?" said the other. "I don't know so very much about it, but there's been some agitation down there against the railroads, and Waterman and the Steel crowd put in Governor Hannis to do nothing."

"It was rather staggering to me," said Montague, after a little thought. "I didn't say anything about it, but you know Governor Hannis is an old friend of my father's, and one of the finest men I ever knew."

"Oh, yes, I don't doubt that," said Curtiss, easily. "They put up these fine, respectable old gentlemen. Of course, he's simply a figure-head—he probably has no idea of what he's really doing. You understand, of course, that Senator Harmon is the real boss of your State."

"I have heard it said," said Montague. "But I never took much stock in such statements—"

"Humph!" said Curtiss. "You'd take it if you'd been in my boots. I used to do business for old Waterman's Southern railroads, and I've had occasion to take messages to Harmon once or twice. New York is the place where you find out about this game!"

"It's not a very pleasant game," said Montague, soberly.

"I didn't make the rules," said Curtiss. "You find you either have to play that way or else get out altogether."

The younger man relapsed into silence for a moment, then laughed to himself. "I know how you feel," he said. "I remember when I first came out of college, the twinges I used to have. I had my head full of all the beautiful maxims of the old Professor of Ethics. And they took me on in the legal department of the New York and Hudson Railroad, and we had a case—-some kind of a damage suit; and old Henry Corbin—their chief counsel, you know—gave me the papers, and then took out of his desk a typewritten list of the judges of the Supreme Court of the State. 'Some of them are marked with red,' he said; 'you can bring the case before any of them. They are our judges.' Just fancy, you know! And I as innocent as a spring chicken!"

"I should think things like that would get out in the end," said Montague.

Curtiss shrugged his shoulders. "How could you prove it?" he asked.

"But if a certain judge always decided in favour of the railroad—" began Montague.

"Oh, pshaw!" said Curtiss. "Leave that to the judge! Sometimes he'll decide against the railroad, but he'll make some ruling that the higher courts will be sure to upset, and by that time the other fellow will be tired out, and ready to quit. Or else—here's another way. I remember one case that I had that old Corbin told me I'd be sure to win, and I took eleven different exceptions, and the judge decided against me on every single one. I thought I was gone sure—but, by thunder, he instructed the jury in my favour! It took me a long time to see the shrewdness of that; you see, it goes to the higher courts, and they see that the judge has given the losing side every advantage, and has decided purely on the evidence. And of course they haven't the witnesses before them, and don't feel half so well able to judge of the evidence, and so they let the decision stand. There are more ways than one to skin a cat, you see!"

"It doesn't seem to leave much room for justice," said Montague.

To which the other responded, "Oh, hell! If you'd been in this business as long as I have, and seen all the different kinds of shysters that are trying to plunder the railroads, you'd not fret about justice. The way the public has got itself worked up just at present, you can win almost any case you can get before a jury, and there are men who spend all their time hunting up cases and manufacturing evidence."

Montague sat for a while in thought. He muttered, half to himself, "Governor Hannis! It takes my breath away!"

"Get Davenant to tell you about it," said Curtiss, with a laugh. "Maybe it's not so bad as I imagine. Davenant is cynical on the subject of governors, you know. He had an experience a few years ago, when he went up to Albany to try to get the Governor to sign a certain bill. The Governor went out of his office and left him, and Davenant noticed that a drawer of his desk was open, and he looked in, and there was an envelope with fifty brand-new one-thousand- dollar bills in it! He didn't know what they were there for, but this was a mighty important bill, and he concluded he'd take a chance. He put the envelope in his pocket; and then the Governor came back, and after some talk about the interests of the public, he told him he'd concluded to veto that bill. 'Very well,' Mr. Governor,' said the old man, 'I have only this to say,' and he took out the envelope. 'I have here fifty new one-thousand-dollar bills, which are yours if you sign that measure. On the other hand, if you refuse to sign it, I will take the bills to the newspaper men, and tell them what I know about how you got them.' And the Governor turned as white as a sheet, and, by God, he signed the bill and sent it off to the Legislature while Davenant waited! So you can see why he is sceptical about governors."

"I suppose," said Montague, "that was what Price meant when he said he'd furnish the influence."

"That was what he meant," said the other, promptly.

"I don't like the prospect," Montague responded.

The younger man shrugged his shoulders. "What are you going to do about it?" he asked. "Your political machines and your offices are in the hands of peanut-politicians and grafters who are looking for what's coming to them. If you want anything, you have to pay them for it, just the same as in any other business. You face the same situation every hour—'Pay or quit.'"

"Look," Curtiss went on, after a pause, "take our own case. Here we are, and we want to build a little railroad. It's an important work; it's got to be done. But we might haunt the lobbies of your State legislature for fifty years, and if we didn't put up, we wouldn't get the charter. And, in the meantime, what do you suppose the Steel Trust would be doing?"

"Have you ever thought what such things will lead to?" asked Montague.

"I don't know," said Curtiss. "I've had a fancy that some day the business men of the country will have to go into politics and run it on business lines."

The other pondered the reply. "That sounds simple," he said. "But doesn't it mean the overthrow of Republican institutions?"

"I am afraid it would," said Curtiss. "But what's to be done?"

There was no answer.

"Do you know any remedy?" he persisted.

"No, I don't know any remedy," said Montague, "but I am looking for one. And I can tell you of this, for a start; I value this Republic more than I do any business I ever got into yet; and if I come to that dilemma, it will be the business that will give way."

Curtiss was watching him narrowly. He put his hand on his shoulder. "That's all right, old man," he said. "But take my advice, and don't let Davenant hear you say that."

"Why not?" asked the other.

The younger man rose from his seat. "Here's my station," he said. "The reason is—it might unsettle his ideas. He's a conservative Democrat, you know, and he likes to make speeches at banquets!"



CHAPTER XII



IN spite of his doubts, Montague returned to his old home, and put through the programme as agreed. Just as he had anticipated, he found that he was received as a conquering hero by the holders of the Northern Mississippi stock. He talked with old Mr. Lee, his cousin, and two or three others of his old friends, and he had no difficulty in obtaining their pledges for the new ticket. They were all interested, and eager about the future of the road.

He did not have to concern himself with the new charter. Davenant drew up the bill, and he wrote that a nephew of Senator Harmon's would be able to put it through without attracting any attention. All that Montague knew was that the bill passed, and was signed by the Governor.

And then came the day of the stockholders' meeting. He attended it, presenting proxies for the stock of Ryder and Price, and nominated his ticket, greatly to the consternation of Mr. Carter, the president of the road, who had been a lifelong friend of his family's. The new board of directors was elected by the votes of nearly three-fourths of the stock, and the new stock issue was voted by the same majority. As none of the former stockholders cared to take the new stock, Montague subscribed for the whole issue in the name of Ryder and Price, and presented a certified check for the necessary deposit.

The news of these events, of course, created great excitement in the neighbourhood; also it did not pass unobserved in New York. Northern Mississippi was quoted for the first time on the "curb," and there was quite a little trading; the stock went up nearly ten points in one day.

Montague received this information in a letter from Harry Curtiss. "You must be prepared to withstand the flatteries of the Steel crowd," he wrote. "They will be after you before long."

Montague judged that he would not mind facing the "Steel crowd"; but he was much troubled by an interview which he had to go through with on the day after the meeting. Old Mr. Carter came to see him, and gave him a feeble hand to shake, and sat and gazed at him with a pitiful look of unhappiness.

"Allan," he said, "I have been president of the Northern Mississippi for fifteen years, and I have served the road faithfully and devotedly. And now—I want you to tell me—what does this mean? Am I—"

Montague could not remember a time when Mr. Carter had not been a visitor at his father's home, and it was painful to see him in his helplessness. But there was nothing that could be done about it; he set his lips together.

"I am very sorry, Mr. Garter," he said; "but I am not at liberty to say a word to you about the plans of my clients."

"Am I to understand, then, that I am to be turned out of my position? I am to have no consideration for all that I have done? Surely—"

"I am very sorry," Montague said again, firmly,—"but the circumstances at the present time are such that I must ask you to excuse me from discussing the matter in any way."

A day or two later Montague received a telegram from Price, instructing him to go to Riverton, where the works of the Mississippi Steel Company were located, and to meet Mr. Andrews, the president of the Company. Montague had been to Riverton several times in his youth, and he remembered the huge mills, which were one of the sights of the State. But he was not prepared for the enormous development which had since taken place. The Mississippi Steel Company had now two huge Bessemer converters, in which a volcano of molten flame roared all day and night. It had bought up the whole western side of the town, and cleared away half a hundred ramshackle dwellings; and here were long rows of coke-ovens, and two huge rail-mills, and a plate-mill from which arose sounds like the crashing of the day of doom. Everywhere loomed rows of towering chimneys, and pillars of rolling black smoke. Little miniature railroad tracks ran crisscross about the yards, and engines came puffing and clanking, carrying blazing white ingots which the eye could not bear to face.

Opposite to the entrance of the stockaded yards, the Company had put up a new office building, and upon the top floor of this were the president's rooms.

"Mr. Andrews will be in on the two o'clock train," said his secretary, who was evidently expecting the visitor. "Will you wait in his office?"

"I think I should like to see the works, if you can arrange it for me," said Montague. And so he was provided with a pass and an attendant, and made a tour of the yards.

It was interesting to Montague to see the actual property of the Mississippi Steel Company. Sitting in comfortable offices in Wall Street and exchanging pieces of paper, one had a tendency to lose sight of the fact that he was dealing in material things and disposing of the destinies of living people. But Montague was now to build and operate a railroad—to purchase real cars and handle real iron and steel; and the thought was in his mind that at every step of what he did he wished to keep this reality in mind.

It was a July day, with not a cloud in the sky, and an almost tropical sun blazed down upon the works. The sheds and railroad tracks shimmered in the heat, and it seemed as if the cinders upon which one trod had been newly poured from a fire. In the rooms where the furnaces blazed, Montague could not penetrate at all; he could only stand in the doorway, shading his eyes from the glare. In each of these infernos toiled hundreds of grimy, smoke-stained men, stripped to the waist and streaming with perspiration.

He gazed down the long rows of the blast furnaces, great caverns through the cracks of which the molten steel shone like lightning. Here the men who worked had to have buckets of water poured over them continually, and they drank several gallons of beer each day. He went through the rail-mills, where the flaming white ingots were caught by huge rollers, and tossed about like pancakes, and flattened and squeezed, emerging at the other end in the shape of tortured red snakes of amazing length. At the far end of the mill one could see them laid out in long rows to cool; and as Montague stood and watched them, the thought came to him that these were some of the rails which Wyman had ordered, and which had been the cause of such dismay in the camp of the Steel Trust!

Then he went on to the plate-mill, where giant hammers resounded, and steel plates of several inches' thickness were chopped and sliced like pieces of cheese. Here the spectator stared about him in bewilderment and clung to his guide for safety; huge travelling cranes groaned overhead, and infernal engines made deafening clatter upon every side. It was a source of never ending wonder that men should be able to work in such confusion, with no sense of danger and no consciousness of all the uproar.

Montague's eye roamed from place to place; then suddenly it was arrested by a sight even unusually startling. Across on the other side of the mill was a steel shaft, which turned one of the largest of the rollers. It was high up in the air, and revolving with unimaginable speed, and Montague saw a man with an oil-can in his hand rest the top of a ladder upon this shaft, and proceed to climb up.

He touched his guide upon the arm and pointed. "Isn't that dangerous?" he shouted.

"It's against orders," said the man. "But they will do it."

And even while the words of a reply were upon his lips, something happened which turned the sound into a scream of horror. Montague stood with his hand still pointing, his whole body turned to stone. Instantaneously, as if by the act of a magician, the man upon the ladder had disappeared; and instead there was a hazy mist about the shaft, and the ladder tumbling to the ground.

No one else in the mill appeared to have noticed it. Montague's guide leaped forward, dodging a white-hot plate upon its journey to the roller, and rushed down the room to where the engineer was standing by his machinery. For a period which could not have been less than a minute, Montague stood staring at the horrible sight; and then slowly he saw what had been a mist beginning to define itself as the body of a man whirling about the shaft.

Then, as the machinery moved more slowly yet, and the din in the mill subsided, he saw several men raise the ladder again to the shaft and climb up. When the revolving had stopped entirely, they proceeded to cut the body loose; but Montague did not wait to see that. He was white and sick, and he turned and went outside.

He went away to another part of the yards and sat down in the shade of one of the buildings, and told himself that that was the way of life. All the while the din of the mills continued without interruption. A while later he saw four men go past, carrying a stretcher covered with a sheet. It dropped blood at every step, but Montague noticed that the men who passed it gave it no more than a casual glance. When he passed the plate-mill again, he saw that it was busy as ever; and when he went out at the front gate, he saw a man who had been pointed out to him as the foreman of the mill, engaged in picking another labourer from the group which was standing about.

He returned to the president's office, and found that Mr. Andrews had just arrived. A breeze was blowing through the office, but Andrews, who was stout, was sitting in his chair with his coat and vest off, vigorously wielding a palmleaf fan.