se losing
money on the job?"

"That's no sort of satisfaction to our men," retorted Mr. Wheatcroft,
cooking himself before the fire. "Somebody else--confound him!--will be
able to keep his men together and to give them the wages we want for
our men. Do you think somebody else is the Tuxedo Company again?"

"What of it?" asked Mr. Whittier. "Surely you don't suppose----"

"Yes, I do," interrupted Mr. Wheatcroft, swiftly. "I do, indeed. I
haven't been in this business thirty years for nothing. I know how
hungry we get at all times for a big, fat contract; and I know we would
any of us give a hundred dollars to the man who could tell us what our
chief rival has bid. It would be the cheapest purchase of the year,
too."

"Come, come, Wheatcroft," said the elder Whittier; "you know we've
never done anything of that sort yet, and I think you and I are too old
to be tempted now."

"Nothing of the sort," snorted the fiery little man; "I'm open to
temptation this very moment. If I could know what the Tuxedo people are
going to bid on the new steel rails of the Springfield and Athens, I'd
give a thousand dollars."

"If I understand you, Mr. Wheatcroft," Paul Whittier asked, "you are
suggesting that there has been something done that is not fair?"

"That's just what I mean," Mr. Wheatcroft declared, vehemently.

"Do you mean to say that the Tuxedo people have somehow been made
acquainted with our bids?" asked the young man.

"That's what I'm thinking now," was the sharp answer. "I can't think of
anything else. For two months we haven't been successful in getting a
single one of the big contracts. We've had our share of the little
things, of course, but they don't amount to much. The big things that
we really wanted have slipped through our fingers. We've lost them by
the skin of our teeth every time. That isn't accident, is it? Of course
not! Then there's only one explanation--there's a leak in this office
somewhere."

"You don't suspect any of the clerks, do you, Mr. Wheatcroft?" asked
the elder Whittier, sadly.

"I don't suspect anybody in particular," returned the junior partner,
brushing his hair up the wrong way; "and I suspect everybody in
general. I haven't an idea who it is, but it's somebody! It must be
somebody--and if it is somebody, I'll do my best to get that somebody
into the clutches of the law."

"Who makes up the bids on these important contracts?" asked Paul.

"Wheatcroft and I," answered his fath