ile."
Then, upon second thought: "Yes; I guess you could have pulled it off.
We couldn't stand for any such bill-boarding as you were threatening to
give us."

Blount turned to his desk, opened it, and began to arrange his papers.

"You've been a good friend, after all, Dick," he said, talking as he
worked. "I'm going to ask you to go one step farther and take charge of
the funeral, if you will. Find Mr. McVickar and wire him that I've
dropped out. I'll write him a resignation from somewhere, when I have
time."

Gantry left his chair and came to stand beside the quitter.

"Honestly, Evan," he said slowly, "I thought you were a grown man.
You'll forgive the mistake, won't you?"

Blount turned upon his tormentor and swore pathetically. "What's the
use--what in the devil is the use?" he rasped, when the outburst began
to grow measurably articulate. "You know as well as I do what's been
done to me, and who has done it. Can I lift my hand to strike back, even
if I had a weapon to strike with?"

"Perhaps you can't. But you owe it to yourself, and to a certain
bright-minded young woman that I know of, not to fly off the handle
without at least trying to see if you can't stay on. Wait a minute." The
railroad man took a turn up and down the floor, head down and hands
behind him. When he came back to the desk end he began again. "Evan,
who's got those original papers?"

"The man who blew up my safe, of course. You've said you didn't hire
him, and that leaves only one alternative."

Gantry took the dummy packet from his pocket and held one of the blank
sheets up to the light of the window. It was growing dusk, and when he
failed to discern what he was looking for, he turned on the electric
lights and tried again. At this the script "T-C" water-mark was plainly
visible, and he showed it to Blount.

"That proves conclusively that the substitution was made here in your
own office. Whom do you suspect?"

In a flash Blount remembered: how he had sent Collins to get the packet
out of the safe, the stenographer's delay, the hasty sealing of the
envelope, and the suspicion which had been cut short by the incoming of
Ackerton.

"I know now who did it, and when it was done," he said. "The day before
the office was broken into I told Collins to bring me the papers from
the safe. What he brought me was that dummy--in a freshly sealed
envelope. I was going to open the envelope, but just then Ackerton
came in."

"All clear so f