am, or between him and Duncan, would
involve something of risk. So he sat alone in his hotel room, thinking
and planning.

He did not know or dream how anxious Tandy was to draw him into some of
his schemes. He did not know that both the barrel factory and the gas
enterprise had recently become veritable white elephants on Tandy's
hands. He did not know that Tandy--in his eagerness to overreach
Hallam--had "stretched himself out like a string," as Hallam
picturesquely put it--by investing more money in these two companies,
and several others, than he could just then spare. Especially, he did
not know that Hallam had himself completely organized and capitalized
both a gas company and a barrel company, and that Tandy's two companies
represented an unsuccessful attempt to rival enterprises into which
Hallam had "breathed the breath of life."

He was surprised, therefore, when a bell boy brought him Tandy's card,
as he sat there in his lonely hotel room, planning the morrow's
campaign.

"I thought you might be lonely," said the banker, as he was ushered into
the room, "seeing that you're a stranger in town. So I have dropped in
for a chat."

The "chat" very quickly fell into financial channels, and it did not
proceed far before shrewd Richard Temple discovered some things of
advantage to himself. Among the things discovered was the fact that
Tandy was somewhat over anxious to hasten the business in hand.
Apparently he feared that Temple might fall in with other advisers. He
seemed anxious to arrive at conclusions in a hurry, Temple thought, and
the thought served at once to put him on his guard and to give him his
opportunity. He listened with every indication of interest to all that
Tandy had to say concerning the two still unlaunched enterprises--the
barrel factory and the gas company. He asked interested questions
concerning them, and ventured the suggestion that the proposed
capitalization of the gas company was too small to admit of the best
results.

"As an engineer," he said, "I know something of the cost of digging
trenches and laying mains, and it seems to me that in order to equip
itself for business this company will need a good deal more money than
you plan to put into it as capital stock."

"I see your point," Tandy answered quickly, "and in any ordinary case it
would be sound enough, though of course a company of that kind doesn't
depend upon its subscribed capital alone, or even chiefly for its
worki