the nurse out of his room. "And close
the doors," he said, "and don't come until I ring." He began to use
the branch telephone at his bedside, calling up Langdon, and then
Tavistock, to assure himself that all was going well. Next he called
up in succession five of the great individual money-lenders of Wall
Street, pledged them to secrecy and made arrangements for them to call
upon him at his house at different hours that day and Sunday. Another
might have intrusted the making of these arrangements to Culver or
Langdon, but Dumont never let any one man know enough of his plan of
battle to get an idea of the whole.

"Now for the ammunition," he muttered, when the last appointment was
made. And he rang for Culver.

Culver brought him writing materials. "Take this order," he said, as
he wrote, "to the Central Park Safety Deposit vaults and bring me from
my compartment the big tin box with my initials in white--remember, IN
WHITE--on the end of it."

Three-quarters of an hour later Culver returned, half-carrying,
half-dragging the box. Dumont's eyes lighted up at sight of it. "Ah!"
he said, in a sigh of satisfaction and relief. "Put it under the head
of the bed here. Thanks. That's all."

The nurse came as Culver left, but he sent her away. He supported
himself to the door, locked it. He took his keys from the night-stand,
drew out the box and opened it. On the mass of stocks and bonds lay an
envelope containing two lists--one, of the securities in the box that
were the property of Gladys Dumont; the other, of the securities there
that were the property of Laura Dumont, their mother.

His hands shook as he unfolded these lists, and a creaking in the walls
or flooring made him start and glance round with the look of a
surprised thief. But this weakness was momentary. He was soon
absorbed in mentally arranging the securities to the best advantage for
distribution among the money-lenders as collateral for the cash he
purposed to stake in his game.

Such thought as he gave to the moral quality of what he was doing with
his sister's and his mother's property without asking their consent was
altogether favorable to himself. His was a well-trained, "practical"
conscience. It often anticipated his drafts upon it for moral support
in acts that might at first blush seem criminal, or for soothing
apologies for acts which were undeniably "not QUITE right." This
particular act, conscience assured him, was of the