say, I'll fix things up with the
plain-spoken Britisher, and take your acknowledgment in return for his
written statement that he has no claim on you. I know how to handle
that breed of cattle, and mayn't press you for the money until you can
pay it comfortably."

"What are you doing it for?" asked Leslie, dubiously.

"For several reasons; I don't mind mentioning a few. I want more say
in the running of this Company, and I could get at useful facts my
colleagues didn't know through its secretary. I could also give him
instructions without the authority of a board meeting, see? And I
fancy I could put a spoke in Savine's wheel best by doing it quietly my
own way. One live man can often get through more than a squabbling
dozen, and the money is really nothing much to me."

"I had better sue the Englishman for defamation, and prove my
innocence, even if the legal expenses ruin me," said Leslie, and the
other, who laughed aloud, checked him.

"Pshaw! It is really useless trying that tone with me, especially as I
have heard about another dispute of the kind you once had at
Westminster. You're between the devil and the deep sea, but if you
don't start kicking you'll get no hurt from me. Call it a deal--and,
to change the subject, where's the man you sent up to worry Thurston?"

"I don't know," said Leslie. "I gave him a round sum, part of it out
of my own pocket, for I couldn't in the meantime think of a suitable
entry--all the directors don't agree with you. I know he started, but
he has never come back again."

"Then you have got to find him," was the dry answer. "We'll have
law-suits and land commissions before we're through, and if Thurston
has corralled or bought that man over, and plays him at the right
moment, it would certainly cost you your salary."

"I can't find him; I've tried," asserted Leslie.

"Then you had better try again and keep right on trying. Get at
Thurston through his friends if you can't do it any other way. Your
wife is already a figure in local society."

That night Leslie leaned against the mantelpiece in his quarters
talking to his wife. They had just returned from some entertainment
and Millicent, in beautiful evening dress, lay in a lounge chair
watching him keenly.

"You would not like to be poor again, Millicent?" he said, fixing his
glance, not upon her face but on her jeweled hands, and the woman
smiled somewhat bitterly as she answered:

"Poor again! That would