d up a lot of damage
suits, for one thing; and in one or two counties the commissioners are
trying to make them pay for new bridges--a question of the
interpretation of the franchise. I gave warning of that possibility."

"Thunder! I hope it won't come to the worst. I didn't know you were
keeping track of it."

"One of my old classmates at Williams is counsel for the Desbrosses
Trust and Guaranty Company which is the trustee for the bondholders. I
passed on the mortgage for them as to its local aspects. I'm going over
to Indianapolis to meet him in a few days to determine what to do in
event the interest is defaulted. The management has been unsatisfactory,
and after five years the replacements are running ahead of the
estimates."

"I wonder--" began Amzi; then he paused and rubbed his scalp. "I suppose
my neighbor Bill is already out from under."

"I don't know," said Kirkwood soberly. "It was Sam who was the chief
promoter."

"Sam was a smooth proposition. Thunder! I lost money when Sam died. I'd
made a bet with myself that they'd pin something on him before he got
through, but he died just out of spite to make me lose. Thunder! Bill
makes strong statements."

The strength of the statements made by the First National Bank did not,
however, seem to disturb Amzi. What he had learned from Kirkwood had not
been in the nature of fresh information, but it had confirmed certain
suspicions touching the Sycamore Traction Company. The Bartletts and
Phil were talking quietly in a corner. Amzi rose and pulled down his
percale waistcoat and buttoned the top button of his cutaway coat, in
which he looked very much like a fat robin. He advanced toward the group
in the corner.

"Nan," he said, "you didn't buy a Sycamore bond that time I told you not
to, did you?"

Rose beat time for her sister mockingly, and they answered in singsong.

"We did not! We did not! But," Nan added, dropping her hands to her
sides tragically, "but if we had, oh, sir!"

"If you had I should have bought it of you at a premium. It's hard work
being a banker for women: they all want ten per cent a month."

"Paul Fosdick's things were all guaranteed ten per cent a year,"
remarked Rose.

They all waited for the explosion that must follow the mention of this
particular brother-in-law. Nowhere else in town would any one have dared
to bring Fosdick, who was believed to be his pet abomination, into a
conversation. Even in Hastings he found a kind of