ders that he
must not be disturbed, the young man gave his name.

The effect upon the barkeeper was instantaneous. With the aggrieved air
of one who feels he is the victim of a jest he laughed scornfully.

"What are you putting over?" he demanded.

The young man smiled reassuringly. He had begun to speak and, though
apparently engaged with the beer-glass he was polishing, the barkeeper
listened.

Down in Wall Street the senior member of Carroll and Hastings also
listened. He was alone in the most private of all his private offices,
and when interrupted had been engaged in what, of all undertakings, is
the most momentous. On the desk before him lay letters to his lawyer, to
the coroner, to his wife; and hidden by a mass of papers, but within
reach of his hand, was an automatic pistol. The promise it offered of
swift release had made the writing of the letters simple, had given him
a feeling of complete detachment, had released him, at least in thought,
from all responsibilities. And when at his elbow the telephone coughed
discreetly, it was as though some one had called him from a world from
which already he had made his exit.

Mechanically, through mere habit, he lifted the receiver.

The voice over the telephone came in brisk, staccato sentences.

"That letter I sent this morning? Forget it. Tear it up. I've been
thinking and I'm going to take a chance. I've decided to back you boys,
and I know you'll make good. I'm speaking from a road-house in the
Bronx; going straight from here to the bank. So you can begin to draw
against us within an hour. And--hello!--will three millions see you
through?"

From Wall Street there came no answer, but from the hands of the
barkeeper a glass crashed to the floor.

The young man regarded the barkeeper with puzzled eyes.

"He doesn't answer," he exclaimed. "He must have hung up."

"He must have fainted!" said the barkeeper.

The white-haired one pushed a bill across the counter. "To pay for
breakage," he said, and disappeared down Pelham Parkway.

Throughout the day, with the bill, for evidence, pasted against the
mirror, the barkeeper told and retold the wondrous tale.

"He stood just where you're standing now," he related, "blowing in
million-dollar bills like you'd blow suds off a beer. If I'd knowed it
was _him_, I'd have hit him once and hid him in the cellar for the
reward. Who'd I think he was? I thought he was a wire-tapper, working a
con game!"

Mr. Carroll