e banks hold. You
must have them here tomorrow night.... Hello, is that you Carter? I need
a special train for Barry Spa in thirty minutes, and another to meet it
there for Lake Mosoc."

There was a moment's silence, then Burton's voice came with violent
explosiveness.

"Impossible? It seems to me that every man I talk to prates vacantly
about impossibilities. Damn it, when I need a train I need a train....
You understand me, don't you, Carter?"

Again there was the interruption of the voice at the further end. As
Burton listened his eyes kindled afresh under blackly drawn brows, but
when he spoke it was in a clear and cold voice, more unpleasant to hear
than a tirade of passion.

"To hell with explanations, Carter! I want action. Do I get my train?
You are burning time.... Kindly listen because I mean this to the last
syllable.... Unless you can achieve this highly impossible matter of
accommodation--" suddenly the voice leaped to a higher scale and shot
out its ultimatum like canister--"I will throw you out of the
presidency and the damned road-bed into the river and the shops into the
junk heap.... All right, please hurry." He clapped down the receiver,
then resumed his second thread of thought as though there had been no
interruption.

"I want those bankers here. That is your job, Tarring. They need know
only that it is of vital importance and that our meeting must be
attended with the strictest confidence. Intimate that my object is the
averting of ruinous runs which must follow unless we stop them--and
worse disasters."

Tarring rose. His task, as compared with the other he had seen assigned,
appeared easy. "Shall I come with them?" he inquired.

Burton nodded. "You are a notary. It may be necessary for you to take
acknowledgments."

CHAPTER XV

When the two emissaries had left the library Hamilton Burton sat before
his hearth and shook loose the reins of imagination. He burned driftwood
in this room and as his eyes dwelt on the shooting tongues of blue flame
that licked around the logs his dreams absorbed him. Yamuro, his
Japanese valet, slipped in to see if his master required him--but his
footfall was noiseless, and when he had tiptoed close enough to study
the face, he departed without speaking. The lips in the yellow face
parted in a grin that bared a spread of strong, white teeth. The eyes
between high cheekbones glistened in dark slits and in his throat, too
low to be heard, a little gr