oint. So much the president was able to note in the appraisive
glance--and to remember afterward.

The caller made no reply to the curt question. He had turned and was
closing the door. There was a quiet insistence in the act that was like
the flick of a whip to Mr. Galbraith's irritation.

"If you have business with me, you'll have to excuse me for a few
minutes," he protested, still more impatiently. "Be good enough to take
a seat in the anteroom until I ring. MacFarland should have told you."

The young man drew up a chair and sat down, ignoring the request as if
he had failed to hear it. Ordinarily Mr. Andrew Galbraith's temper was
equable enough; the age-cooled temper of a methodical gentleman whose
long upper lip was in itself an advertisement of self-control. But such
a deliberate infraction of his rules, coupled with the stony impudence
of the visitor, made him spring up angrily to ring for the watchman.

The intruder was too quick for him. When his hand sought the bell-push
he found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver, and so was fain
to fall back into his chair, gasping.

"Ah-h-h!" he stammered. And when the words could be managed: "So that's
it, is it?--you're a robber!"

"No," said the invader of the presidential privacies calmly, speaking
for the first time since his incoming. "I am not a robber, save in your
own very limited definition of the word. I am merely a poor man, Mr.
Galbraith--one of the uncounted thousands--and I want money. If you call
for help, I shall shoot you."

"You--you'd murder me?" The president's large-jointed hands were
clutching the arms of the pivot-chair, and he was fighting manfully for
courage and presence of mind to cope with the terrifying emergency.

"Not willingly, I assure you: I have as great a regard for human life as
you have--but no more. You would kill me this moment in self-defence, if
you could: I shall most certainly kill you if you attempt to give an
alarm. On the other hand, if you prove reasonable and obedient your life
is not in danger. It is merely a question of money, and if you are
amenable to reason----"

"If I'm--but I'm not amenable to your reasons!" blustered the president,
recovering a little from the first shock of terrified astoundment. "I
refuse to listen to them. I'll not have anything to do with you. Go
away!"

The young man's smile showed his teeth, but it also proved that he was
not wholly devoid of the sense of humor.

"Keep