neck, much to the old man's embarrassment, who was not
accustomed to such a situation. She kissed him in spite of himself,
allowing the cheque to flutter to the floor, the most valuable bit of
paper floating around loose in America that day.

When he reached his office he surprised his son. He shook his fist in
the young fellow's face, and said sternly--

"If you ever say a cross word to that little girl, I'll do what I've
never done yet--I'll thrash you!"

The young man laughed.

"All right, father. I'll deserve a thrashing in that case."

The old man became almost genial whenever he thought of his pretty
daughter-in-law. "My little girl," he always called her. At first, Wall
Street men said old Druce was getting into his dotage, but when a nip
came in the market and they found that, as usual, the old man was on
the right side of the fence, they were compelled reluctantly to admit,
with emptier pockets, that the dotage had not yet interfered with the
financial corner of old Druce's mind.

As young Mrs. Druce sat disconsolately in her drawing-room, the
curtains parted gently, and her father-in-law entered stealthily, as if
he were a thief, which indeed he was, and the very greatest of them.
Druce had small, shifty piercing eyes that peered out from under his
grey bushy eyebrows like two steel sparks. He never seemed to be
looking directly at any one, and his eyes somehow gave you the idea
that they were trying to glance back over his shoulder, as if he feared
pursuit. Some said that old Druce was in constant terror of
assassination, while others held that he knew the devil was on his
track and would ultimately nab him.

"I pity the devil when that day comes," young Sneed said once when some
one had made the usual remark about Druce. This echoed the general
feeling prevalent in Wall Street regarding the encounter that was
admitted by all to be inevitable.

The old man stopped in the middle of the room when he noticed that his
daughter-in-law was crying.

"Dear, dear!" he said; "what is the matter? Has Edward been saying
anything cross to you?"

"No, papa," answered the girl. "Nobody could be kinder to me than Ed.
is. There is nothing really the matter." Then, to put the truth of her
statement beyond all question, she began to cry afresh.

The old man sat down beside her, taking one hand in his own. "Money?"
he asked in an eager whisper that seemed to say he saw a solution of
the difficulty if it were finan