nst it; but even for the routine of
business his aptitude was small, and he began to feel that he was not
considered an addition to the firm. The difficulty of finding another
opening made him fear a break; and his thoughts turned hopefully to
Elmer Moffatt's hint of a "deal." The success of the negotiation might
bring advantages beyond the immediate pecuniary profit; and that, at the
present juncture, was important enough in itself.

Moffatt reappeared two days after the dinner, presenting himself in West
End Avenue in the late afternoon with the explanation that the business
in hand necessitated discretion, and that he preferred not to be seen in
Ralph's office. It was a question of negotiating with the utmost privacy
for the purchase of a small strip of land between two large plots
already acquired by purchasers cautiously designated by Moffatt as his
"parties." How far he "stood in" with the parties he left it to Ralph
to conjecture; but it was plain that he had a large stake in the
transaction, and that it offered him his first chance of recovering
himself since Driscoll had "thrown" him. The owners of the coveted
plot did not seem anxious to sell, and there were personal reasons for
Moffatt's not approaching them through Ralph's partners, who were the
regular agents of the estate: so that Ralph's acquaintance with the
conditions, combined with his detachments from the case, marked him out
as a useful intermediary.

Their first talk left Ralph with a dazzled sense of Moffatt's strength
and keenness, but with a vague doubt as to the "straightness" of the
proposed transaction. Ralph had never seen his way clearly in that dim
underworld of affairs where men of the Moffatt and Driscoll type moved
like shadowy destructive monsters beneath the darting small fry of the
surface. He knew that "business" has created its own special morality;
and his musings on man's relation to his self imposed laws had shown him
how little human conduct is generally troubled about its own sanctions.
He had a vivid sense of the things a man of his kind didn't do; but his
inability to get a mental grasp on large financial problems made it hard
to apply to them so simple a measure as this inherited standard. He only
knew, as Moffatt's plan developed, that it seemed all right while he
talked of it with its originator, but vaguely wrong when he thought it
over afterward. It occurred to him to consult his grandfather; and if he
renounced the ide