eason for the visit except to swear around
my office like a drunken and abusive pirate. If you have nothing for
temperate discussion, I will now say good-day to you. Take with you the
honors of war, sir. You have outcussed me. I acknowledge your
superiority in billingsgate--"--he paused and for an instant his voice
mounted, as he added--"and in nothing else!"

"Have you reached so secure a stage, then, that you can defy and insult
Harrison and myself? Are you prepared to declare war on the entire world
of finance?" Now Malone spoke with regained composure, but an ominous
undernote of threat. "Let's have done with pretense. In so far as any
individuals can make or break--we can. When you came, an unlicked cub,
into the world of large affairs it was through us you made the alliances
upon which your success is built. However great you conceive yourself to
be, 'Consolidated' still recognizes in us its active heads."

Hamilton Burton replied with a smile of unruffled calm. "You say I came
to you. Many men have come to you, only to go away again with empty
hands."

"You did not."

"No. You took me to your hearts--but why? Was it because you pitied me?
Has pity or gentle courtesy ever yet prevented 'Consolidated' from
crucifying a victim? You conceded me my seat at your directorates only
because you were compelled to recognize my value there. You lifted me
from the ranks to the general staff of finance because of unescapable
conviction that I inherently belonged among you; that I should take my
place there as an ally or an enemy. You had a suspicion then of what I
_knew_ before I ever saw a city--that I could not be stopped."

"Grant for the sake of brevity that Genius and Destiny are your
handmaidens." Malone leaned across the table, resting his weight on his
planted knuckles. Under his shaggy brows his eyes burned deeply and
satirically. Across from him Hamilton Burton stood, younger, slenderer
and more pliant of pose; his eyes meeting those of his protagonist,
level and unwavering. "Grant that all your self-adulation is
warrantable. Now that you have attained this place in the councils of
the few, do you mean to become only a wrecker and a spoiler? Do you
recognize no rules of war? Do you adhere to no principles of loyalty?
Are you merely a breeder of storms and a maker of panics? Because if you
are, by the Eternal God, I think we are yet strong enough to stamp you
out--to utterly obliterate you!"

"So"--the younger