otherwise the papers
in the two suits, which were already prepared, would be filed before
noon. Hanchett took his principal into the laboratory for a private
word.

"It's for you to decide, Mr. Gordon," he said. "If you want to follow
them into the court, we'll do the best we can. But as a friend I can't
advise you to take that course."

"If we could only make out to find out what Tom's holdin' over 'em!"
groaned Caleb helplessly.

"Yes; but we can't," said the lawyer. "And whatever it may be, they are
evidently not afraid of it."

"We'll never see a dollar's dividend out o' the stock, Cap'n Hanchett. I
might as well give 'em the foundry free and clear."

"That's the chance you take, of course. But on the other hand, they can
force you to the wall in a month and make you lose everything you have.
I've been over the books with Norman: if you can't fill your pipe
contracts, the forfeitures will ruin you. And you can't fill them unless
you can have Chiawassee iron, and at the present price."

The old iron-master led the way back to the room of doom and took his
place at the end of the trestle-board table.

"Give me the papers," he said gloomily; and the Farleys' attorney passed
them across, with his fountain-pen.

There was a purring of wheels in the air and the staccato clatter of a
horse's hoofs on the hard metaling of the pike. Vincent Farley rose
quietly in his place and tiptoed to the door. He was in the act of
snapping the catch of the spring-latch, when the door flew inward and he
fell back with a smothered exclamation. Thereupon they all looked up,
Caleb, the tremulous, with the pen still suspended over the signatures
upon which the ink was still wet.

Tom was standing in the doorway, deathly sick and clinging to the jamb
for support. In putting on his hat he had slipped the bandages, and the
wound was bleeding afresh. Dyckman yelped like a stricken dog,
overturning his chair as he leaped up and backed away into a corner.
Only Mr. Duxbury Farley and his attorney were wholly unmoved. The lawyer
had taken his fountain-pen from Caleb's shaking fingers and was
carefully recapping it; and Mr. Farley was pocketing the agreement, by
the terms of which the firm of Gordon and Gordon had ceased to exist.

Tom lurched into the room and threw himself feebly on the promoter, and
Vincent made as if he would come between. But there was no need for
intervention. Duxbury Farley had only to step aside, and Tom fell
hea