uff of his sweater.
"After these profit-and-loss artists get your goat on all the starts
your old man left you, maybe I'll have to put up the eats and sleeps
for you anyhow; huh?" and Mr. Bates laughed with keen enjoyment of
this delicately expressed idea. "How are you going to divorce yourself
from the rest of it, Bobby?"

"I'm not quite sure," said Bobby. "You know that big stretch of swamp
land, out on the Millberg Road?"

"Where Paddy Dolan fell in and died from drinkin' too much water? Sure
I do."

"Well, it has been suggested to me that I buy it, drain it, fill it,
put in paved streets, cut it up into building lots and sell it."

"And build it full of these pale yellow shacks that the honest working
slob buys with seventeen years of his wages, and then loses the
shack?" Biff incredulously wanted to know.

"You guessed wrong, Biff," laughed Bobby. "Just selling the lots will
be enough for me. What do you think of it?"

"I don't know," said Mr. Bates thoughtfully. "I know they frame up
such stunts and boost 'em strong in the papers, and if any of these
real-estate sharps is working just for their healths they've been
stung from all I've seen of 'em. But the main point is, who's the guy
that's tryin' to lead you to it?"

"Oh, that part's all right," replied Bobby with perfect assurance.
"The man who wants me to finance this, and who has already bought some
of the land, was one of my father's right-hand men for nearly thirty
years."

"Then that's all right," agreed Mr. Bates. "But say!" he suddenly
exclaimed as a new thought struck him; "it's a wonder this right-mitt
mut of your father's didn't make the old man fall for it long ago, if
it's such a hot muffin."

"He did try it," confessed Bobby with hesitation for the second time
that day; "but the governor always complained that he had too many
other irons in the fire."

"He did, _did_ he?" Mr. Bates wanted to know, fixing accusing eyes on
Bobby. "Then don't be the fall guy for any other touting. Your old man
knew this business dope from Sheepshead Bay to Oakland. You take it
from me that this tip ain't the one best bet."

Bobby left the gymnasium with a certain degree of dissatisfaction, not
only with Mr. Applerod's scheme but with the fact that wherever he
went his father's business wisdom was thrown into his teeth. That
evening, drawn to the atmosphere into which events had plunged him, he
dined at the Traders' Club. As he passed one of the tables Si