y he began to
take hold of the outside world.

"Are you there, Pauline?" he asked, after perhaps half an hour during
which his mind had swiftly swept the whole surface of his affairs.

The nurse rose from the lounge across the foot of the bed. "Your wife
was worn out, Mr. Dumont," she began. "She has--"

"What day is it?" he interrupted.

"Thursday."

"Of the month, I mean."

"The seventeenth," she answered, smiling in anticipation of his
astonishment.

But he said without change of expression,

"Then I've been ill three weeks and three days. Tell Mr. Culver I wish
to see him at once."

"But the doctor--"

"Damn the doctor," replied Dumont, good-naturedly. "Don't irritate me
by opposing. I shan't talk with Culver a minute by the clock. What I
say will put my mind at rest. Then I'll eat something and sleep for a
day at least."

The nurse hesitated, but his eyes fairly forced her out of the room to
fetch Culver. "Now remember, Mr. Dumont--less than a minute," she
said. "I'll come back in just sixty seconds."

"Come in forty," he replied. When she had closed the door he said to
Culver: "What are the quotations on Woolens?"

"Preferred twenty-eight; Common seven," answered Culver. "They've been
about steady for two weeks."

"Good. And what's Great Lakes and Gulf?"

Culver showed his surprise. "I'll have to consult the paper," he said.
"You never asked me for that quotation before. I'd no idea you'd want
it." He went to the next room and immediately returned. "G. L. and G.
one hundred and two."

Dumont smiled with a satisfied expression.

"Now--go down-town--what time is it?"

"Eight o'clock."

"Morning?"

"Yes, sir, morning."

"Go down-town at once and set expert accountants--get Evarts and
Schuman--set them at work on my personal accounts with the Woolens
Company. Tell everybody I'm expected to die, and know it, and am
getting facts for making my will. And stay down-town yourself all
day--find out everything you can about National Woolens and that
raiding crowd and about Great Lakes and Gulf. The better you succeed in
this mission the better it'll be for you. Thank you, by the way, for
keeping my accident quiet. Find out how the Fanning-Smiths are
carrying National Woolens. Find out--"

The door opened and the plain, clean figure of the nurse appeared.
"The minute's up," she said.

"One second more, please. Close the door." When she had obeyed he
went on: "See Tavist