ich
was vital to the Roebuck-Langdon-Melville combine for a monopoly of the
coal of the country.

"Did not Mr. Langdon commission you to buy them for him and his friends?"
inquired Roebuck, in that slow, placid tone which yet, for the attentive
ear, had a note in it like the scream of a jaguar that comes home and finds
its cub gone.

"But I couldn't get them for him," I explained. "The owners wouldn't sell
until I engaged that the National Coal and Railway Company was not to have
them."

"Oh, I see," said Roebuck, sinking back relieved. "We must get Browne to
draw up some sort of perpetual, irrevocable power of attorney to us for you
to sign."

"But I won't sign it," said I.

Roebuck took up a sheet of paper and began to fold it upon itself with
great care to get the edges straight. He had grasped my meaning; he was
deliberating.

"For four years now," I went on, "you people have been promising to take
me in as a principal in some one of your deals--to give me recognition by
making me president, or chairman of an executive or finance committee. I am
an impatient man, Mr. Roebuck. Life is short, and I have much to do. So I
have bought the Manasquale mines--and I shall hold them."

Roebuck continued to fold the paper upon itself until he had reduced it
to a short, thick strip. This he slowly twisted between his cruel fingers
until it was in two pieces. He dropped them, one at a time, into the
waste-basket, then smiled benevolently at me. "You are right," he said.
"You shall have what you want. You have seemed such a mere boy to me that,
in spite of your giving again and again proof of what you are, I have been
putting you off. Then, too--" He halted, and his look was that of one
surveying delicate ground.

"The bucket-shop?" suggested I.

"Exactly," said he gratefully. "Your brokerage business has been invaluable
to us. But--well, I needn't tell you how people--the men of standing--look
on that sort of thing."

"I never have paid any attention to pompous pretenses," said I, "and I
never shall. My brokerage business must go on, and my daily letters to
investors. By advertising I rose; by advertising I am a power that even you
recognize; by advertising alone can I keep that power."

"You forget that in the new circumstances, you won't need that sort of
power. Adapt yourself to your new surroundings. Overalls for the trench; a
business suit for the office."

"I shall keep to my overalls for the present," said