uld save it. He'd spoil it, because he don't care for it. I
bought Fabian out. As for my wife, she couldn't run it, and--"

"You could sell it," interrupted Tarboe.

"Sell it! Sell it!" said Grier wildly. "Sell it to whom?"

"To Belloc," was the malicious reply. The demon of anger seized the old
man.

"You say that to me--you--that I should sell to Belloc! By hell, I'd
rather burn every stick and board and tree I've got--sweep it out of
existence, and die a beggar than sell it to Belloc!" Froth gathered at
the corners of his mouth, there was tumult in his eyes. "Belloc! Knuckle
down to him! Sell out to him!"

"Well, if you got a profit of twenty per cent. above what it's worth it
might be well. That'd be a triumph, not a defeat."

"I see what you mean," said John Grier, the passion slowly going from
his eyes. "I see what you mean, but that ain't my way. I want this
business to live. I want Grier's business to live long after John Grier
has gone. That's why I was going to say to you that in my will I'm
going to leave you this business, you to pay my wife every year twenty
thousand dollars."

"And your son, Carnac?"

"Not a sou-not a sou--not a sou--nothing--that's what I meant at first.
But I've changed my mind now. I'm going to leave you the business, if
you'll make a bargain with me. I want you to run it for three years,
and take for yourself all the profits over the twenty thousand dollars
a year that goes to my wife. There's a lot of money in it, the way you'd
work it."

"I don't understand about the three years," said Tarboe, with rising
colour.

"No, because I haven't told you, but you'll take it in now. I'm going to
leave you the business as though you were going to have it for ever,
but I'll make another will dated a week later, in which I leave it to
Carnac. Something you said makes me think he might come right, and it
will be playing fair to him to let him run himself alone, maybe with
help from his mother, for three years. That's long enough, and perhaps
the thought of what he might have had will work its way with him. If it
don't--well, it won't; that's all; but I want you to have the business
long enough to baulk Belloc and Fabian the deserter. I want you for
three years to fight this fight after I'm gone. In that second secret
will, I'll leave you two hundred thousand dollars. Are you game for it?
Is it worthwhile?"

The old man paused, his head bent forward, his eyes alert and searching,
bot