. I
shall expect you to start in here tomorrow morning. The salary will be
double your present wages. And, since you have constituted yourself
guardian of the boy, I may as well tell you that the Company has decided
to set aside a yearly sum for his maintenance and education.

"Now you can go, if you are in such a tremendous hurry, Randolph: only
don't try any more of such toploftiness with me. It won't go down, you
see;" and the Manager chuckled softly, as John, with broken thanks, left
the room. "I rather think I got the better of him that time!" he said to
himself.

CHAPTER XVIII.

Judge Hildreth sat in his private office, immersed in anxious thought.
Every day brought new difficulties to be wrestled with in connection
with the multitudinous schemes which were making an old man of him while
he was still in his prime. His hair was grey, his hands trembled, his
eyes were bloodshot, and his face had the unhealthy pallor which
accompanies intense nervous pressure and excitement.

He knew that it was so, and the knowledge did not tend to sweeten his
disposition. He told himself again and again that he could not help
it,--it was the force of circumstances and the curse of competition.
Like the fly in the spider's parlor, he found himself inextricably
enveloped in the silken maze of deceit which he had entered so blithely
years ago. He had ceased to question bitterly whether the game was worth
the candle. He told himself the Fates had decreed it, and the game had
to be played out to the end, The principal thing now was to keep the
pieces moving and prevent a checkmate, for that would mean ruin!

One of the office boys knocked at the door and presented a card, for
into this _sanctum sanctorum_ no one was permitted to enter unannounced.
The card bore the name of the nominal president of the Consolidated
Provident Savings Company, which was one of the numerous schemes that
Judge Hildreth had on hand. It was not always wise to have his name
appear. He believed in sleeping partnerships. As he explained it to
himself, that gave one a free hand.

The Consolidated Provident Savings Company was a popular institution in
Marlborough. There were conservative financiers who shook their heads
and feared that its methods were not based on sound business principles
and savored too much of wild-cat schemes and fraudulent speculations,
but they were voted cranks by the majority, and the Consolidated
Provident Savings Company gre