mzi turned to Nan, who nodded acquiescence. The banker really loved
music, and slipped away several times every winter to Chicago, to hear
concerts or the opera. On occasions he had taken Kirkwood and Phil and
they had made a great lark of it.

"What's this rumor about the Sycamore Traction being in trouble?" asked
Nan.

Amzi rubbed his head. He had not come to the Bartletts' to discuss
business, and the topic was not, moreover, one that interested him at
the moment.

"There are a lot of papers on your desk about that, daddy," Phil
remarked. "But I suppose those are office secrets."

There was, indeed, a telegram from a New York lawyer asking why Kirkwood
had not replied to a certain letter. He glanced at her quickly,
apparently disturbed that the matter had been mentioned. Her father's
inattention to the letter of the New York lawyer had, independently of
Nan Bartlett's reference to the traction company, caused Phil to make
certain resolutions touching both her father and herself.

"I've got my hand on that, Phil. I've answered."

Phil saw that the subject of this correspondence, whose import she had
scarcely grasped, was not to be brought into the conversation. She
turned away as Amzi addressed her father in a low tone.

"Tom, as I remember, you made a report on that scheme before the bonds
were sold. Do you mind telling me whether that was for the same crowd
that finally took it up?"

"Yes; but they cut down the amount they undertook to float. Sam Holton
sold a lot of the bonds along the line; a good many of them are held
right here in this county."

"They are, indeed. It seemed a plausible thing for the home folks to own
the securities of a company that was going to do so much for the town;
they pulled that string hard. It was a scheme to draw the coin out of
the old stocking under the fireplace. If it was good for widows and
orphans out in Seattle and Bangor, why wasn't it good for 'em at home?
And it _is_ good for the people at home if it's played straight. I've
had an idea that these cross-country trolleys will have about the same
history the steam roads had,--a good many of 'em will bust and the
original investors will see their securities shrink; and there will be
smash-ups and shake-downs and then in time the lines will pay. Just
what's the trouble here, Tom, if you don't mind?"

"There's an apprehension that the November interest won't be paid. The
company's had some hard luck--a wreck that's pile