w and flourished. It paid large dividends,
and its stockholders were duly impressed with the magnificence of its
buildings and the grandiose tone of its officials.

Judge Hildreth frowned heavily as he read the name, and was about to
deny himself to the visitor, but on second thought he curtly ordered
the boy to show him in.

The man who obeyed the invitation bowed deferentially to his chief and
then took a chair in front of him, with the table between. He was
elaborately dressed, and the shiny silk hat which he deposited on the
table looked aggressively prosperous. His manner betokened a man
suddenly inflated with a sense of his own importance. His hair was
sandy, and the thin moustache and beard failed to cover the pitifully
weak lines of his mouth and chin.

"Good-morning, Peters." The Judge nodded carelessly as he spoke, but he
moved uneasily in his chair. Of late the sight of this man fretted him.
It seemed as if he always saw him accompanied by a ghostly form. He
tried to shake off the impression, and told himself angrily that he was
falling into his dotage; but his memory would not yield. He saw again
the pleading, trustful face of the man's mother as, years ago, she had
besought him to do what he could for her son.

"Just make a man of him, like yourself, Judge Hildreth," she had
pleaded. "I will be more than satisfied then. I want my boy to be
respected and to have a place in the world. Folks needn't know how hard
his mother had to work."

The Judge smiled grimly as he thought of her phrasing,--"a man like
yourself." She did not know how near to it he had come!

The boy had a surface smartness, and he had proved himself an apt
scholar. The Judge had found him a willing tool in many of his deep laid
schemes to get money for less than money's worth. But within the last
few months there had been a change. A spark of manhood had asserted
itself, and in the presence of his minion the Judge found himself upon
the rack.

He was the first to speak. "I hope there is nothing out of the usual?"
he said. "I intended coming over to the office before the meeting of
directors took place."

"It is the same old trouble about bonds, Judge Hildreth. There are not
enough of them to go round."

The Judge rubbed his hands in simulated pleasure. "Well, that shows good
management, Peters, if the public are hungry for our stock."

"The public are fools!" said the young man, hotly.

"Not at all, Peters. A discriminating pu