man of Jack Holton's reputation as
the repository of confidences; but things had been going badly with
Waterman. His passion for speculation had led him to invest funds he
held as guardian in pork margins, and a caprice of the powers that play
with pork in Chicago had wiped him out. Judge Walters had just been
asking impertinent questions about the guardianship money, and when he
had gone to the First National Bank for a loan to tide over the judicial
inquiry and avert an appeal to his bondsmen, William Holton had "called"
a loan of three hundred dollars that the bank had been carrying for two
years. This was very annoying, and it made the lawyer more tolerant of
Jack Holton than he should otherwise have been.

"We're talking on the dead, are we?"

Waterman grunted his acquiescence.

"Well, Kirkwood and old Amzi have framed it up to pinch the small
Sycamore stockholders. Kirkwood stands in with those Eastern fellows who
have the big end of it--he's their representative, as everybody knows.
And old Amzi is gumshoeing through the woods buying bonds of the yaps
who shelled out to Samuel--telling them the company's gone to the bad,
and that he's the poor man's friend, anxious to assume their burdens.
It's a good story, all right. Of course he has his tip from Kirkwood
that the bonds are going to boom or he wouldn't be putting money into
'em. You know Amzi--he's the king of gumshoe artists--and he and
Kirkwood are bound to make a big clean-up out of this."

Waterman was interested. He had always disliked Amzi. He felt that the
banker had never dealt squarely with him, and in particular the
peremptory fashion in which Amzi, seven years earlier, had pushed his
pass-book through the window and suggested that he take his account
elsewhere had eaten into his soul.

"I knew somebody was picking up those bonds, but I didn't know it was
Amzi. One of my clients had five of them, and I'd got him to the point
of letting me bring suit for a receiver, but somebody shut him off."

"Your client's bonds are in Kirkwood's pocket, all right enough. By
George, can you beat it! And here's another thing. A man hates to talk
against his own flesh and blood; and you may think I'm not in a position
to strut around virtuously and talk about other people's sins; but I
guess I've got some sense of honor left. I've never stolen any money. I
did run off with another man's wife, and I got my pay for _that_. That
was in the ardor of youth, Waterman