erris seeks the position of the one Eastern lawyer of the great
Trust.

"But," and a wave of anger swept away all the grateful memoirs
of his youth, "why did this cool old badger, Worthington, take me
to his home, later back me through college, and then, and there
railroad me off here to be fenced around with his spies? He could
have easily dropped me at any time. If he really cared to advance
me, why not have made me a lawyer and breed me up to share his
secrets?" There came no answer to his troubled mind as he sat there,
alone, despising Ferris and doubting even Worthington's candor.

He had revolved several future plans of action in his mind before
reaching the vitreous substratum of the generous high-ball. His
first indignant impulse was to give up the joint apartment in a
fortnight.

May the first was rapidly coming on by Nature's calendar of leaf
and bird, of deepening green in the park and light-hearted woman's
smartening attire.

"No," he resentfully cried, as he threw his cigar away and paid his
bill, "that would only show them my hand. I'll make no open enemy
of Ferris."

"But I will dodge Worthington's spies and then lock up my heart.
I will keep on good terms with Worthington's lickspittle and try
and later reach the secret of all this strange behavior. The old
man seems unwilling to let me go out of his control, and yet he
has tied me down to this ironclad money mill--as a slave rubbing
the lamp for him." It opened a gloomy future to him, this dreary
hour of introspection.

Randall Clayton had not lost all the opportunities of his New York
life for a peep behind the metropolitan scenes. He knew that there
was an inside view to be had of the clubs, the great hotels, the
show life of the smart set, the pretentious apartment houses, the
banks and theaters, the ambitious schemes of business and professional
men.

One by one the shams had yielded to his prying gaze, and, but too
well, he knew the truth of Tom Moore's trite remark, "False the
light on glory's plume!"

But, straightforward and sincere, he had never watched his
own environment. The loss of his mother in his childhood and his
father's lonely struggle to retrieve his fallen fortunes had left
the boy without happy memories of boyhood, with no family history
to aid him, and the embarrassment of his dependence upon Hugh
Worthington had robbed him of the confidences incident to young
manhood.

Only in his books had he learned of the p