d his eye-glasses his
blue, cynical eyes twinkled like frost crystals. As always, he was
immaculately dressed in neat gray clothes, and carried in one corner of
his mouth an unlighted cigar.

"Joe," said Orde, spinning a chair to Newmark's roll-top desk and
speaking in a low tone, "just how do we stand on that upper peninsula
stumpage?"

"What do you mean? How much of it is there? You know that as well as I
do--about three hundred million."

"No; I mean financially."

"We've made two payments of seventy-five thousand each, and have still
two to make of the same amount."

"What could we borrow on it?"

"We don't want to borrow anything on it," returned Newmark in a flash.

"Perhaps not; but if we should?"

"We might raise fifty or seventy-five thousand, I suppose."

"Joe," said Orde, "I want to raise about seventy-five thousand dollars
on my share in this concern, if it can be done."

"What's up?" inquired Newmark keenly.

"It's a private matter."

Newmark said nothing, but for some time thought busily, his light blue
eyes narrowed to a slit.

"I'll have to figure on it a while," said he at last, and turned back
to his mail. All day he worked hard, with only a fifteen-minute
intermission for a lunch which was brought up from the hotel below. At
six o'clock he slammed shut the desk. He descended the stairs with Orde,
from whom he parted at their foot, and walked precisely away, his tall,
thin figure held rigid and slightly askew, his pale eyes slitted behind
his eye-glasses, the unlighted cigar in one corner of his straight lips.
To the occasional passerby he bowed coldly and with formality. At the
corner below he bore to the left, and after a short walk entered the
small one-story house set well back from the sidewalk among the clumps
of oleanders. Here he turned into a study, quietly and richly furnished
ten years in advance of the taste then prevalent in Monrovia, where he
sank into a deep-cushioned chair and lit the much-chewed cigar. For some
moments he lay back with his eyes shut. Then he opened them to look with
approval on the dark walnut book-cases, the framed prints and etchings,
the bronzed student's lamp on the square table desk, the rugs on the
polished floor. He picked up a magazine, into which he dipped for ten
minutes.

The door opened noiselessly behind him.

"Mr. Newmark, sir," came a respectful voice, "it is just short of
seven."

"Very well," replied Newmark, without looking aroun