Cone's call had forced his hand; of Dill and his
mission, and disgust at his own carelessness in failing to record his
claims.

They concentrated finally upon the work which lay before him once he had
demonstrated the truth or falsity of Sprudell's assertion that Slim's
family were not to be found. He turned the situation over and over in
his mind and always it resolved itself into the same thing, namely, his
lack of money. That obstacle confronted him at every turn and yet in
spite of it, in spite of the doubts and fears which reason and caution
together thrust into his mind, his determination to win, to outwit
Sprudell, to make good his boast, grew stronger with every turn of the
car wheels.

Ambition was already awake within him; but it needed Sprudell's sneers
to sting his pride, Sprudell's ingratitude and arrogant assumption of
success in whatever it pleased him to undertake, to arouse in Bruce that
stubborn, dogged, half-sullen obstinacy which his father had called
mulishness but which the farmer's wife with her surer woman's intuition
had recognized as one of the traits which make for achievement. It is a
quality which stands those who have it in good stead when failure stares
them in the face.

It did not take Bruce long to discover that in whatever else Sprudell
had prevaricated he at least had told the truth when he said that the
Naudain family had disappeared. They might never have existed, for all
the trace he could find of them in the city of a million.

The old-fashioned residence where "Slim" had lived, with its dingy
trimmings, and its marble steps worn in hollows, affected him strangely
as he stood across the street where he could see it from roof to
basement. It made "Slim" seem more real, more like "folks" and less like
a malignant presence. It had been an imposing house in its time but now
it was given over to doctors' offices and studios, while a male
hair-dresser in the basement transformed the straight locks of
fashionable ladies into a wonderful marcelle.

Bruce went down to make some inquiries and he stared at the proprietor
as though he were some strange, hybrid animal when he came forward
testing the heat of a curling-iron against his fair cheek.

No, the hair-dresser shook his fluffy, blonde head, he never had heard
of a family named Naudain, although he had been four years in the
building and knew everyone upstairs. A trust company owned the place
now; he was sure of that because the