ing he touched. The nature of his altered fortunes
had not been made public. All the little companies that he
investigated were having a hand-to-mouth existence, or manufacturing a
product which was not satisfactory to him. He did find one company in
a small town in northern Indiana which looked as though it might have
a future. It was controlled by a practical builder of wagons and
carriages--such as Lester's father had been in his day--who,
however, was not a good business man. He was making some small money
on an investment of fifteen thousand dollars and a plant worth, say,
twenty-five thousand. Lester felt that something could be done here if
proper methods were pursued and business acumen exercised. It would be
slow work. There would never be a great fortune in it. Not in his
lifetime. He was thinking of making an offer to the small manufacturer
when the first rumors of a carriage trust reached him.

Robert had gone ahead rapidly with his scheme for reorganizing the
carriage trade. He showed his competitors how much greater profits
could be made through consolidation than through a mutually
destructive rivalry. So convincing were his arguments that one by one
the big carriage manufacturing companies fell into line. Within a few
months the deal had been pushed through, and Robert found himself
president of the United Carriage and Wagon Manufacturers' Association,
with a capital stock of ten million dollars, and with assets
aggregating nearly three-fourths of that sum at a forced sale. He was
a happy man.

While all this was going forward Lester was completely in the dark.
His trip to Europe prevented him from seeing three or four minor
notices in the newspapers of some of the efforts that were being made
to unite the various carriage and wagon manufactories. He returned to
Chicago to learn that Jefferson Midgely, Imogene's husband, was still
in full charge of the branch and living in Evanston, but because of
his quarrel with his family he was in no position to get the news
direct. Accident brought it fast enough, however, and that rather
irritatingly.

The individual who conveyed this information was none other than
Mr. Henry Bracebridge, of Cleveland, into whom he ran at the Union
Club one evening after he had been in the city a month.

"I hear you're out of the old company," Bracebridge remarked,
smiling blandly.

"Yes," said Lester, "I'm out."

"What are you up to now?"

"Oh, I have a deal of my own un