ether'--those were your own words. I urged you
at the time to go slowly--to consider carefully whether you weren't
being too generous. I myself said to you that you were ridiculously
exaggerating what you called your obligation to me. It was you who
insisted upon presenting me with 100,000 shares."

"Well, they are here ready for you," said Thorpe, with calculated
coldness. "You can have them whenever you please. I promised them to
you, and set them aside for you. You can take them away with you now,
if you like. What are you kicking up this fuss for, then? Upon my
word!--you come here and suggest to me that I made promises to you which
I've broken!"

Plowden looked hard at him, as he turned over in his mind the purport of
these words. "I see what you are doing," he said then. "You turn over
to me 100,000 vendor's deferred shares. Thanks! I have already 1,000 of
them. I keep them in the same box with my father's Confederate bonds."

"What the hell do you mean?" Thorpe broke in with explosive warmth,
lifting himself in his chair.

"Oh, come now, Thorpe," Plowden retorted, "let's get this talk on an
intelligent, common-sense footing." He had regained something of his
self-control, and keenly put forward now to help him all his persuasive
graces of eye and speech. He seated himself once more. "I'm convinced
that you want to be good to me. Of course you do! If I've seemed here
for a minute or two to think otherwise, it was because I misunderstood
things. Don't let there be any further misunderstandings! I apologize
for doing you the momentary injustice of suspecting that you were going
to play off the vendor's shares on me. Of course you said it--but it was
a joke."

"There seems to be a joke somewhere, sure enough," said Thorpe, in dryly
metallic tones--"but it isn't me who's the joker. I told you you should
have 100,000 of my 400,000 shares, didn't I? I told you that in so many
words. Very well, what more do you want? Here they are for you! I keep
my promise to the letter. But you--you seem to think you're entitled to
make a row. What do you mean by it?"

"Just a little word"--interposed Plowden, with strenuous calmness of
utterance--"what you say may be true enough--yes, I admit it is true as
far as it goes. But was that what either of us had in our minds at
the time? You know it wasn't! You had just planned a coup on the Stock
Exchange which promised you immense rewards. I helped you to pass a
bogus allotment thr