nscontinental deal was a gone goose."

"It was more than that. I might have come pretty near being a gone goose
along with it. Not quite gone, perhaps--I should have had a few cents
left in the stocking--but I should have lost a lot more than I care to
lose. So it was bull luck, hey? I don't believe it. Tell me the whole
story, from beginning to end, will you? Mabel has told me some, but I
want to hear it all. Go ahead!"

I thought of Quimby's warning. "I'm afraid I should tire you, Mr.
Colton. It is a long story, if I give particulars."

"Never mind, you give them. That 'tiring' business is some more of that
doctor's foolishness. HE makes me tired, all right. You tell me what I
want to know or I'll get out of this bed and shake it out of you."

He looked as if he meant to carry out his threat. I began my tale at the
beginning and went on to the astonishing end.

"Don't ask me why I did this or that, Mr. Colton," I concluded. "I don't
know. I think I was off my head part of the time. But something HAD to
be done. I tried to look at the affair in a common-sense way, and--"

"And, HAVING common-sense, you used it. Paine, you're a brick! Your kind
of common-sense is so rare that it's worth paying any price for. Ha! ha!
So it was Keene and his 'Development Company' that gave you the idea.
That's good! That little failure of mine wasn't altogether a failure,
after all. You saw it was a case where a bluff might win, and you had
the sand to bluff it through. That comes of living so long where there
is more sand than anything else, I imagine, hey! Ha! ha! Well, bull luck
or insanity or whatever you call it, it did the trick. Of course I'm
more obliged to you than I can tell. You know that."

"That's all right, Mr. Colton. Now I think I must be going. You've
talked enough."

"You sit still. I haven't begun to talk yet. Paine, before you did this
thing for me I had taken a fancy to you. I believed there was good
stuff in you and that I could use you in my business. Now I know I can't
afford to do without you. . . . Stop! let me finish. Young man, I told
you once that when I made up my mind to do a thing, I always did it.
ALWAYS; do you understand? I am going to get you. You are coming with
me."

I had foreseen this, of course. But I had hoped to get away from that
room before he reached the point. He had reached it, however, and
perhaps it was as well he had. We would end this for all time.

"Mr. Colton," I answered, "