merely to be saying
something nice about two pretty women."

The reproof went home, deeply, but without a pang; and the boy sat
silent, studying the blotter between his elbows.

A little later he started for home at Selwyn's advice. But the memory of
his card losses frightened him, and he stopped on the way to see what
money Austin would advance him.

Julius Neergard came up from Long Island, arriving at the office about
noon. The weather was evidently cold on Long Island; he had the
complexion of a raw ham, but the thick, fat hand, with its bitten nails,
which he offered Selwyn as he entered his office, was unpleasantly hot,
and, on the thin nose which split the broad expanse of face, a bead or
two of sweat usually glistened, winter and summer.

"Where's Gerald?" he asked as an office-boy relieved him of his heavy
box coat and brought his mail to him.

"I advised Gerald to go home," observed Selwyn carelessly; "he is not
perfectly well."

Neergard's tiny mouse-like eyes, set close together, stole brightly in
Selwyn's direction; but they usually looked just a little past a man,
seldom at him.

"Grippe?" he asked.

"I don't think so," said Selwyn.

"Lots of grippe 'round town," observed Neergard, as though satisfied
that Gerald had it. Then he sat down and rubbed his large, membranous
ears.

"Captain Selwyn," he began, "I'm satisfied that it's a devilish good
thing."

"Are you?"

"Emphatically. I've mastered the details--virtually all of 'em. Here's
the situation in a grain of wheat!--the Siowitha Club owns a thousand or
so acres of oak scrub, pine scrub, sand and weeds, and controls four
thousand more; that is to say--the club pays the farmers' rents and
fixes their fences and awards them odd jobs and prizes for the farm
sustaining the biggest number of bevies. Also the club pays them to
maintain the millet and buckwheat patches and to act as wardens. In
return the farmers post their four thousand acres for the exclusive
benefit of the club. Is that plain?"

"Perfectly."

"Very well, then. Now the Siowitha is largely composed of very rich
men--among them Bradley Harmon, Jack Ruthven, George Fane, Sanxon
Orchil, the Hon. Delmour-Carnes--_that_ crowd--rich and stingy. That's
why they are contented with a yearly agreement with the farmers instead
of buying the four thousand acres. Why put a lot of good money out of
commission when they can draw interest on it and toss an insignificant
fraction of that