nhattan
glowed out like the fire-spray of a thousand arrested rockets, cigars
were lighted and the flanneled quartette settled back into their four
deck-chairs. Then it was that Harrison gave the cue with a terse
question: "Well, why are we here?" Instantly Malone's face altered.

"To consider a method for clipping Burton's claws," he announced with
decisive brevity.

"Why not let sleeping dogs lie?" The inquiry came thoughtfully from
Meegan of the Cosmopolitan Bank.

Malone's voice rang like steel on flint. "Gentlemen, this man is a
charlatan. As his power grows his menace increases. Consolidated has
never brooked disobedience nor insolence. It has been our policy to
reward the faithful servant and punish the unfaithful." He glanced
around the group, then continued in the manner of one issuing an edict.
"Heretofore we have not waited until the refractory child grew too big
to punish. We should not do so now."

"For my part," suggested Harrison with a quiet twinkle in his eyes, "I'm
just as willing to let someone else take this child out to the woodshed
now."

"Hamilton Burton is outgrowing restraint." Malone was snapping out his
words with categorical crispness. "Do you realize the perilous scope of
his dream? His overvaulting ambition looks to a one-man power of
finance; a power vested solely in himself. We are rearing a
Frankenstein, gentlemen. To overlook it means our ultimate ruin--and,
what is more, a national cataclysm."

"And yet," interposed Harrison quietly, "his power is largely of our
making. We took him to our hearts."

J.J. Malone admitted the statement with a grave nod.

"Up to the point where arrogance became a mania, he was a most valuable
lieutenant. I select men for efficiency. When they seek to become
usurpers, I endeavor to halt them."

The Honorable S.T. Browne, as general counsel for many Consolidated
interests, had evolved the theorem that from every statute there is an
escape. Now he inquired, "How did he gain his seat in the saddle?
Sudden, wasn't it?"

"He came into my office one day only a few years ago," answered the
chief baron. "Twice I refused to see him, but he meant to see me--and he
did. More than that, he fascinated me. I knew that I was talking with a
genius and a man of dauntless mind. Such minds I can use. I used his."

Meegan knocked the ash from his cigar and laughed. "Burton has a certain
hypnotic quality of address," he conceded.

"It is not address--it is geniu