I'm going to see that bunch of holy grafters get
away with the swag and us not climb in?" snorted old Henry.

"Well, I don't like to do it. Kind of double-crossing."

"It ain't. It's triple-crossing. It's the public that gets
double-crossed. Well, now we've been ethical and got it out of our
systems, the question is where we can raise a loan to handle some of
the property for ourselves, on the Q. T. We can't go to our bank for it.
Might come out."

"I could see old Eathorne. He's close as the tomb."

"That's the stuff."

Eathorne was glad, he said, to "invest in character," to make Babbitt
the loan and see to it that the loan did not appear on the books of the
bank. Thus certain of the options which Babbitt and Thompson obtained
were on parcels of real estate which they themselves owned, though the
property did not appear in their names.

In the midst of closing this splendid deal, which stimulated business
and public confidence by giving an example of increased real-estate
activity, Babbitt was overwhelmed to find that he had a dishonest person
working for him.

The dishonest one was Stanley Graff, the outside salesman.

For some time Babbitt had been worried about Graff. He did not keep his
word to tenants. In order to rent a house he would promise repairs
which the owner had not authorized. It was suspected that he juggled
inventories of furnished houses so that when the tenant left he had
to pay for articles which had never been in the house and the price
of which Graff put into his pocket. Babbitt had not been able to prove
these suspicions, and though he had rather planned to discharge Graff he
had never quite found time for it.

Now into Babbitt's private room charged a red-faced man, panting, "Look
here! I've come to raise particular merry hell, and unless you have that
fellow pinched, I will!" "What's--Calm down, o' man. What's trouble?"

"Trouble! Huh! Here's the trouble--"

"Sit down and take it easy! They can hear you all over the building!"

"This fellow Graff you got working for you, he leases me a house. I
was in yesterday and signs the lease, all O.K., and he was to get the
owner's signature and mail me the lease last night. Well, and he did.
This morning I comes down to breakfast and the girl says a fellow had
come to the house right after the early delivery and told her he wanted
an envelope that had been mailed by mistake, big long envelope with
'Babbitt-Thompson' in the corner of it. S