gh work, Symes, raw even for a green hand. You've left a trail of
blood a yard wide behind you.

Furthermore, the report contained the information that the wide
business experience which you lost no occasion to mention consisted
chiefly of standing off your creditors in various sections of the
country.

I trust that I have made it quite plain to you that we're down
and out. I have about as much weight in financial circles as a
second-story man, and am regarded in much the same light, while you
are as important as a cipher without the rim.

And the man behind all this, the largest bond-holder, the fellow
that has pulled the strings, is not the Fly-Trap King, or even J.
Collins Prescott, but the man he works for, Ogden Van Lennop, whose
present address happens to be Crowheart.

What's the answer? Why has a man like Van Lennop who is there on the
ground and has long been familiar with conditions, why has he become
the largest investor? Why should he tie up money in a project which
the engineer reports will never pay more than a minimum rate of
interest upon the investment even when the Company is re-organized
and the ditch pushed to completion under economical and capable
management? Why has he come in the Company for the one purpose of
wrecking it? Why has he stuck the knife between your short ribs and
mine--and turned it? What's the answer, Symes, you must know?

We might as well buck the Bank of England as the Van Lennops, or
match our wits against the Secret Service. They've got us roped and
tied and I'd advise you not to squeal.

Truly yours,
S. B. MUDGE

Symes laid down the letter and smoothed it carefully, setting a small
brass crocodile exactly in the centre. Wiping his clammy palms upon one
of the handkerchiefs purchased on his wedding tour, the texture of which
always gave him a pleasurable sense of refinement and well-being, he
read again the line which showed below the paper-weight:

There's one thing sure--we're down and out.

Symes's head sunk weakly forward. Down and out! Not even Mudge knew how
far down and out!

Stripped of the hope of success, robbed of the position which he had
made for himself, his self-esteem punctured, his home-life a mockery, no
longer young--it was the combination which makes a man whose vanity is
his strength, lose his grip. To be little where he had been big;