understand--"

"No," said Neergard; "I haven't."

"It's rather out of their usual, I believe--"

"So they say. But Long Island acreage needn't beg favours now. That's
all over, Captain Selwyn. Fane, Harmon & Co. know that; Mr. Gerard ought
to know it, too."

Selwyn looked troubled. "Shall I consult Mr. Gerard?" he repeated. "I
should like to if you have no objection."

Neergard's small, close-set eyes were focused on a spot just beyond
Selwyn's left shoulder.

"Suppose you sound him," he suggested, "in strictest--"

"Naturally," cut in Selwyn dryly; and turning to his littered desk,
opened the first letter his hand encountered. Now that his head was
turned, Neergard looked full at the back of his neck for a long minute,
then went out silently.

* * * * *

That night Selwyn stopped at his sister's house before going to his own
rooms, and, finding Austin alone in the library, laid the matter before
him exactly as Neergard had put it.

"You see," he added, "that I'm a sort of an ass about business methods.
What I like--what I understand, is to use good judgment, go in and
boldly buy a piece of property, wait until it becomes more valuable,
either through improvements or the natural enhancement of good value,
then take a legitimate profit, and repeat the process. That, in outline,
is what I understand. But, Austin, this furtive pouncing on a thing and
clubbing other people's money out of them with it--this slyly acquiring
land that is necessary to an unsuspecting neighbour and then holding him
up--I don't like. There's always something of this sort that prevents my
cordial co-operation with Neergard--always something in the schemes
which hints of--of squeezing--of something underground--"

"Like the water which he's going to squeeze out of the wells?"

Selwyn laughed.

"Phil," said his brother-in-law, "if you think anybody can do a
profitable business except at other people's expense, you are an ass."

"Am I?" asked Selwyn, still laughing frankly.

"Certainly. The land is there, plain enough for anybody to see. It's
always been there; it's likely to remain for a few aeons, I fancy.

"Now, along comes Meynheer Julius Neergard--the only man who seems to
have brains enough to see the present value of that parcel to the
Siowitha people. Everybody else had the same chance; nobody except
Neergard knew enough to take it. Why shouldn't he profit by it?"

"Yes--but if he'd be sat