his secret is the cause of my peril--and I'll not have to justify
myself to him for trying to save myself." What effect my injunction would
have I could not foresee. Certainly it could not save me from the loss of
my fortune; but, possibly, it might check the upward course of the stock
long enough to enable me to snatch myself from ruin, and to cling to firm
ground until the Coal deal drew me up to safety.

My next call was at the Interstate Trust Company. I found Corey waiting for
me in a most uneasy state of mind.

"Is there any truth in this story about you?" was the question he plumped
at me.

"What story?" said I, and a hard fight I had to keep my confusion and alarm
from the surface. For, apparently, my secret was out.

"That you're on the wrong side of the Textile."

So it was out! "Some truth," I admitted, since denial would have been
useless here. "And I've come to you for the money to tide me over."

He grew white, a sickly white, and into his eyes came a horrible, drowning
look.

"I owe a lot to you, Matt," he pleaded. "But I've done you a great many
favors, haven't I?"

"That you have Bob," I cordially agreed. "But this isn't a favor. It's
business."

"You mustn't ask it, Blacklock," he cried. "I've loaned you more money now
than the law allows. And I can't let you have any more."

"Some one has been lying to you, and you've been believing him," said I.
"When I say my request isn't a favor, but business, I mean it."

"I can't let you have any more," he repeated. "I can't!" And down came his
fist in a weak-violent gesture.

I leaned forward and laid my hand strongly on his arm.

"In addition to the stock of this concern that I hold in my own name," said
I, "I hold five shares in the name of a man whom nobody knows that I even
know. If you don't let me have the money, that man goes to the district
attorney with information that lands you in the penitentiary, that puts
your company out of business and into bankruptcy before to-morrow noon.
I saved you three years ago, and got you this job against just such an
emergency as this, Bob Corey. And, by God, you'll toe the mark!"

"But we haven't done anything that every bank in town doesn't do every
day--doesn't have to do. If we didn't lend money to dummy borrowers
and over-certify accounts, our customers would go where they could get
accommodations."

"That's true enough," said I. "But I'm in a position for the moment where I
need my friends--and