d-cat patents, as Lapham
called them, and ended by buying it. He got it, of course, for less
than Lapham took it for, but Lapham was glad to be rid of it for
something, when he had thought it worth nothing; and when the
transaction was closed, he asked the purchaser rather eagerly if he
knew where Rogers was; it was Lapham's secret belief that Rogers had
found there was money in the thing, and had sent the man to buy it.
But it appeared that this was a mistake; the man had not come from
Rogers, but had heard of the patent in another way; and Lapham was
astonished in the afternoon, when his boy came to tell him that Rogers
was in the outer office, and wished to speak with him.

"All right," said Lapham, and he could not command at once the severity
for the reception of Rogers which he would have liked to use. He found
himself, in fact, so much relaxed towards him by the morning's touch of
prosperity that he asked him to sit down, gruffly, of course, but
distinctly; and when Rogers said in his lifeless way, and with the
effect of keeping his appointment of a month before, "Those English
parties are in town, and would like to talk with you in reference to
the mills," Lapham did not turn him out-of-doors.

He sat looking at him, and trying to make out what Rogers was after;
for he did not believe that the English parties, if they existed, had
any notion of buying his mills.

"What if they are not for sale?" he asked. "You know that I've been
expecting an offer from the G. L. & P."

"I've kept watch of that. They haven't made you any offer," said
Rogers quietly.

"And did you think," demanded Lapham, firing up, "that I would turn
them in on somebody else as you turned them in on me, when the chances
are that they won't be worth ten cents on the dollar six months from
now?"

"I didn't know what you would do," said Rogers non-committally. "I've
come here to tell you that these parties stand ready to take the mills
off your hands at a fair valuation--at the value I put upon them when I
turned them in."

"I don't believe you!" cried Lapham brutally, but a wild predatory hope
made his heart leap so that it seemed to turn over in his breast. "I
don't believe there are any such parties to begin with; and in the next
place, I don't believe they would buy at any such figure;
unless--unless you've lied to them, as you've lied to me. Did you tell
them about the G. L. & P.?"

Rogers looked compassionately at him, but h