the hour I'll get in. I have to wire."

"Certainly, Dr. Archie. Have it for you in a minute." The young man's
pallid, clean-scraped face was all sympathetic interest as he reached
for the telephone. Dr. Archie put out his hand and stopped him.

"Wait a minute. Tell me, first, is Captain Harris down yet?"

"No, sir. The Captain hasn't come down yet this morning."

"I'll wait here for him. If I don't happen to catch him, nail him and
get me. Thank you, Harry."

The doctor spoke gratefully and turned away. He began to pace the lobby,
his hands behind him, watching the bronze elevator doors like a hawk. At
last Captain Harris issued from one of them, tall and imposing, wearing
a Stetson and fierce mustaches, a fur coat on his arm, a solitaire
glittering upon his little finger and another in his black satin ascot.
He was one of the grand old bluffers of those good old days. As gullible
as a schoolboy, he had managed, with his sharp eye and knowing air and
twisted blond mustaches, to pass himself off for an astute financier,
and the Denver papers respectfully referred to him as the Rothschild of
Cripple Creek.

Dr. Archie stopped the Captain on his way to breakfast. "Must see you a
minute, Captain. Can't wait. Want to sell you some shares in the San
Felipe. Got to raise money."

The Captain grandly bestowed his hat upon an eager porter who had
already lifted his fur coat tenderly from his arm and stood nursing it.
In removing his hat, the Captain exposed a bald, flushed dome, thatched
about the ears with yellowish gray hair. "Bad time to sell, doctor. You
want to hold on to San Felipe, and buy more. What have you got to
raise?"

"Oh, not a great sum. Five or six thousand. I've been buying up close
and have run short."

"I see, I see. Well, doctor, you'll have to let me get through that
door. I was out last night, and I'm going to get my bacon, if you lose
your mine." He clapped Archie on the shoulder and pushed him along in
front of him. "Come ahead with me, and we'll talk business."

Dr. Archie attended the Captain and waited while he gave his order,
taking the seat the old promoter indicated.

"Now, sir," the Captain turned to him, "you don't want to sell anything.
You must be under the impression that I'm one of these damned New
England sharks that get their pound of flesh off the widow and orphan.
If you're a little short, sign a note and I'll write a check. That's the
way gentlemen do business. If you want t