k a nervous
turn up and down the long room. When he replied, it was with the
indecisive man's reluctance to commitment of any sort.

"If I call the meeting, I shall be ridiculed; and if I don't call it, I
suppose you'll go to Brewster and Magnus and tell them I've muzzled you.
Have it your own way. I'll issue the call for ten o'clock, the day after
to-morrow, in McVeigh and Mackie's offices in Broad Street. But I warn
you in advance, Mr. Ford, I shall not be able to help you in the least.
And I may add this: that when you reach that part of your proposal where
you call for thirty-five millions additional capital, you may as well
put on your hat and go home. That will be the end of it."

"And of me," laughed the enthusiast. But in spite of the cold comfort,
and of the still colder promise of opposition, he took his leave with a
lighter heart, refusing Mr. Colbrith's rather perfunctory invitation to
stay to luncheon.

And on the gravelled drive, where he again had to make way for the
auto-car purring in on its return, he did not so much as look up at the
pair in the driving-seat.

V

WANTED: THIRTY-FIVE MILLIONS

The offices of McVeigh and Mackie, brokers and financial agents, are in
Broad Street, and the windows of the room used for board meetings look
down upon the angle where beats the money pulse of the nation.

Ford had successfully resisted the temptation to lobby for his scheme
during the one-day interval between his conference with Mr. Colbrith and
the date of the called meeting of the directors. It was not any mistaken
sense of loyalty to the president that restrained him; on the contrary,
he decided that Mr. Colbrith's declaration of war left him free to fight
as he would. But upon due consideration he concluded to set the
advantage of an assault _en masse_ over against the dubious gain of an
advanced skirmish line, and when he turned out of Broadway into Wall
Street on the morning of destiny the men whom he was to meet and
convince were still no more to him than a list of names in the _Poor's
Manual_, consulted within the hour for the purpose.

He was early on the battle-ground; much too early, he thought, when a
clerk ushered him into the board room in the rear of the brokers'
offices. As yet there was only one person present--a young man who was
lounging in the easiest of the leather-covered chairs and yawning
dismally. At the first glance the face seemed oddly and strikingly
familiar; but w