" As he talked he was again the
master financial trickster, full of device and strategy. Finally I
answered:

"Don't say any more, Addicks. Words won't help us. I've got to face
Rogers as soon as a train can take me back to New York, and after
that--then I'll have something to say to you." I started to go.

"What are you going to say to him?" he asked.

"Say to him? What can I say to him? At my solicitation he gave me a
hearing--at his own home--treated me best in the world. I told him
certain things, and pledged my word they were truths, and I've got to go
back and tell----"

"Tell what?"

"That I'm either as big a liar as he says you are or a fool--a doddering
fool."

"You are going to do nothing of the kind," Addicks declared
peremptorily. "You're going to tell him that you were not posted up to
date, and that I, being pressed for money, had pledged some of the
million and a half I had told you we had. That's all. He'll see it all
right, and he'll trade for--for--what we have left."

I suddenly remembered that he had not told me how many bonds he had on
hand. Just a ray of hope in the fog.

"How many free bonds have we to offer, Addicks, suppose he is willing to
overlook this ugly piece of trickery?" I asked anxiously.

"I'm not quite sure," he answered, "but I can find out from the books."
He rang for Miller, his right-hand man, the dummy treasurer of the Bay
State Company, and said to him: "Harry, Mr. Lawson has got mixed up
about the bonds. He thought we had a million and a half. You remember
we've pledged some in the loans. Just how many have we now on hand?"

"Harry" looked it up and said: "Just $904,000 worth."

"There you are, Lawson," cried Addicks. "There's plenty to assure Rogers
we'll do what we agree to."

Fool that I was, I did not see his game. No one ever does see Addicks'
game till it is too late, for no one but a moral idiot would play the
game Addicks plays, and, thank heaven, moral idiots are so rare in life
that it is not worth while figuring out the formula from which they
work.

By one o'clock I was at Mr. Rogers' office at 26 Broadway.

He greeted me warmly. "Well, Lawson, did you get things finished up all
right?"

"Mr. Rogers, I have a most humiliating admission to----"

"Hold up right there. Cut out all explanations and excuses. Have you
brought those bonds as you agreed to, or not?" His eyes were snapping
and shifting from one color to another.

"No, I have not got th