ight submit important and pressing affairs to him for decision. It was
unnecessary for him to tell any one to be brief and pointed.

"I shall have to go to the wall to-day," said I, taking a paper from
my pocket, "unless you save me. Here is a statement of my assets and
liabilities. I call to your attention my Coal holdings. I was one of the
eight men whom Roebuck got round him for the new combine--it is a secret,
but I assume you know all about it."

He laid the paper before him, put on his nose-glasses and looked at it.

"If you will save me," I continued, "I will transfer to you, in a block,
all my Coal holdings. They will be worth double my total liabilities within
three months--as soon as the reorganization is announced. I leave it
entirely to your sense of justice whether I shall have any part of them
back when this storm blows over."

"Why didn't you go to Roebuck?" he asked without looking up.

"Because it is he that has stuck the knife into me."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I suspect the Manasquale properties, which I brought into
the combine, have some value, which no one but Roebuck, and perhaps
Langdon, knows about--and that I in some way was dangerous to them through
that fact. They haven't given me time to look into it."

A grim smile flitted over his face. "You've been too busy getting married,
eh?"

"Exactly," said I. "It's another case of unbuckling for the wedding-feast
and getting assassinated as a penalty. Do you wish me to explain anything
on that list--do you want any details of the combine--of the Coal stocks
there?"

"Not necessary," he replied. As I had thought, with that enormous machine
of his for drawing in information, and with that enormous memory of his for
details, he probably knew more about the combine and its properties than I
did.

"You have heard of the lockout?" I inquired--for I wished him to know I
had no intention of deceiving him as to the present market value of those
stocks.

"Roebuck has been commanded by his God," he said, "to eject the free
American labor from the coal regions and to substitute importations of
coolie Huns and Bohemians. Thus, the wicked American laborers will be
chastened for trying to get higher wages and cut down a pious man's
dividends; and the downtrodden coolies will be brought where they can enjoy
the blessings of liberty and of the preaching of Roebuck's missionaries."

I laughed, though he had not smiled, but had spoken as if stating color