se
line after a thirty days' notice to the stockholders. They will probably
call that meeting, and I don't care if they do. But I have an ambition
to be general manager of the line for those thirty days to make--well, I
want to make a little investigation of general conditions," declared Mr.
Fogg, resorting to his purple handkerchief. "That's all I care to say.
At the end of thirty days we may--I'm speaking of the big interests
I represent--we may decide to buy the line and make it really worth
something to the stockholders. You understand, I hope. It's strictly
business--it's all right--it's good financiering. After it's all over
and those old, hardshell directors wake up, I'll venture to say they'll
be pleased all around that this little turn has been made. In the
mean time, having been taken care of, you needn't mind whether they're
pleased or not."

Boyne looked at the sheaf of certificates in Fogg's hand; he bent
frightened gaze on the documents stacked on the desk. They lay there
representing his responsibility, but they also represented opportunity.
The sight of them was a rebuke to the agitated thoughts of treason
which assailed him. But the mere papers had no voice to make that rebuke
pointed.

Mr. Fogg did have a voice. "Five thousand dollars in your fist, my boy,
as soon as I can work the wire to New York--and there's no piker about
the man who can have five thousand flashed in here when he asks for it.
You can see what kind of men are behind me. What do you care about old
man Vose and his crowd?"

"There's Mr. Franklin! I'll be doing a mighty mean trick, Mr. Fogg. No,
I'll not do it."

Mr. Fogg did not bluster. He was silent for some time. He pursed his
lips and stared at Boyne, and then he shifted his gaze to the ceiling.

"It's too bad--too bad for a young fellow to turn down such an
opportunity," he sighed. "It can be done without you, Boyne, in another
way. The same result will happen. But you might as well be in on it.
Now let me tell you a few instances of how some of the big men in this
country got their start."

Mr. Fogg was an excellent raconteur with a vivid imagination, and it did
not trouble his conscience because the narratives he imparted to this
wide-eyed youth were largely apocryphal.

"You see," he put in at the end of the first tale, "what a flying start
will do for a man. Suppose that chap I've just told you about sat back
and refused to jump when the road was all open to him! You