t the door
next day at the very latest." He patted her smooth white hand
affectionately. "So don't you trouble, little girl, about trifles; and
whenever you want help, you just tell the old man. He knows a thing or
two yet, whether it is on Wall Street or Fifth Avenue."

Sneed was known in New York as the General, probably because he had
absolutely no military experience whatever. Next to Druce he had the
most power in the financial world of America, but there was a great
distance between the first and the second. If it came to a deal in
which the General and all the world stood against Druce, the average
Wall Street man would have bet on Druce against the whole combination.
Besides this, the General had the reputation of being a "square" man,
and that naturally told against him, for every one knew that Druce was
utterly unscrupulous. But if Druce and Sneed were known to be together
in a deal, then the financial world of New York ran for shelter.
Therefore when New York saw old Druce come in with the stealthy tread
of a two-legged leopard and glance furtively around the great room,
singling out Sneed with an almost imperceptible side nod, retiring with
him into a remote corner where more ruin had been concocted than on any
other spot on earth, and talking there eagerly with him, a hush fell on
the vast assemblage of men, and for the moment the financial heart of
the nation ceased to beat. When they saw Sneed take out his note-book,
nodding assent to whatever proposition Druce was making, a cold shiver
ran up the financial backbone of New York; the shiver communicated
itself to the electric nerve-web of the world, and storm signals began
to fly in the monetary centres of London, Paris, Berlin, and Vienna.

Uncertainty paralysed the markets of the earth because two old gamblers
were holding a whispered conversation with a multitude of men watching
them out of the corners of their eyes.

"I'd give half a million to know what those two old fiends are
concocting," said John P. Buller, the great wheat operator; and he
meant it; which goes to show that a man does not really know what he
wants, and would be very dissatisfied if he got it.

"Look here, General," said Druce, "I want you to do me a favour."

"All right," replied the General. "I'm with you."

"It's about my little girl," continued Druce, rubbing his chin, not
knowing just how to explain matters in the cold financial atmosphere of
the place in which they found