removed, Keith was sitting in the office he had
taken in New York, working on the final papers which were to be
exchanged when his deal should be completed, when there was a tap at the
door. A knock at the door is almost as individual as a voice. There was
something about this knock that awakened associations in Keith's mind.
It was not a woman's tap, yet Terpy and Phrony Tripper both sprang into
Keith's mind.

Almost at the same moment the door opened slowly, and pausing on the
threshold stood J. Quincy Plume. But how changed from the Mr. Plume of
yore, the jovial and jocund manager of the Gumbolt _Whistle_, or the
florid and flowery editor of the New Leeds _Clarion_!

The apparition in the door was a shabby representation of what J. Quincy
Plume had been in his palmy days. He bore the last marks of extreme
dissipation; his eyes were dull, his face bloated, and his hair thin and
long. His clothes looked as if they had served him by night as well as
by day for a long time. His shoes were broken, and his hat, once the
emblem of his station and high spirits, was battered and rusty.

"How are you, Mr. Keith?" he began boldly enough. But his assumption of
something of his old air of bravado died out under Keith's icy and
steady gaze, and he stepped only inside of the room, and, taking off his
hat, waited uneasily.

"What do you want of me?" demanded Keith, leaning back in his chair and
looking at him coldly.

"Well, I thought I would like to have a little talk with you about a
matter--"

Keith, without taking his eyes from his face, shook his head slowly.

"About a friend of yours," continued Plume.

Again Keith shook his head very slowly.

"I have a little information that might be of use to you--that you'd
like to have."

"I don't want it."

"You would if you knew what it was."

"No."

"Yes, you would. It's about Squire Rawson's granddaughter--about her
marriage to that man Wickersham."

"How much do you want for it?" demanded Keith.

Plume advanced slowly into the room and looked at a chair.

"Don't sit down. How much do you want for it?" repeated Keith.

"Well, you are a rich man now, and--"

"I thought so." Keith rose. "However rich I am, I will not pay you a
cent." He motioned Plume to the door.

"Oh, well, if that's the way you take it!" Plume drew himself up and
stalked to the door. Keith reseated himself and again took up his pen.

At the door Plume turned and saw that Keith had put him ou