to
himself an interest which he did not seek to analyze.

* * * * *

J.J. Malone returned from the opera that evening for a consultation in
his study with Harrison and Meegan.

"On the day after tomorrow," he reminded them, "the stock-holders'
meeting of Coal and Ore is held. By use of the cumulative system of
balloting we can concentrate our fire on Burton."

"Do you gather," questioned Meegan anxiously, "that our fears of a
Burton raid are founded in fact?"

The elder chief spread before his associates several sheets of closely
written paper.

"On the contrary, I gather that Burton has not selected this time for
his _coup_. I fancy we have forestalled him."

"Yet," suggested Meegan anxiously, "we want to feel sure."

Malone nodded. "Unless several men whom we trust prove traitors, we may
feel sure. Gentlemen, I think we have soon enough, but none too soon,
safeguarded ourselves against piracy. I hardly believe that what Gates
did to L. and N. will be done to us by Burton.... I have been very busy
and for some reason I do not feel quite myself. I think I shall now beg
you to excuse me." The man of mighty resource rose smilingly from the
table and then suddenly rested both hands on its polished surface. His
ruddy face became pallid and he lifted one hand with a bewildered
gesture to his brow.

Harrison and Meegan sprang with a common impulse to his side.

As they helped him to a chair, his step was unsteady. "It will pass,"
Malone assured them. "It is an attack of indigestion." Yet within the
half-hour his powerful frame was being racked by convulsions and two
hours later specialists at St. Luke's were making those preparations
which precede an operation for appendicitis. Tomorrow when the
Stock-Exchange opened the newspapers would spread the news that J.J.
Malone was out of the game and Wall street would once more mirror an
anxiety which any small thing might convert into a parlous situation.

At the same hour a special train with a guaranteed right of way was
thundering along its road-bed with a wake of red cinders and black smoke
trailing from its stack and a single passenger in its single coach. The
Honorable Mr. Ruferton was going to call on the Honorable Mr. Hendricks.

In ignorance of what the morrow held, the Honorable Mr. Hendricks was
meanwhile sleeping peacefully in the quiet of his country house.

Shafts of sunlight came pleasantly through the dining-room window