f
his difficulties?"

"I suggested that he try his son once more," said Dennison. "But he
didn't seem to take kindly to the notion. After a while he began to hint
at some little matter--I couldn't quite get its nature." Ashton-Kirk's
eyes narrowed as Dennison proceeded: "And he seemed to have some
confidence in its turning out well."

"You say you couldn't _quite_ get its nature." Ashton-Kirk was still
regarding the man steadily. "Am I to take from that that you _did_
understand a part of it?"

Dennison stirred uneasily.

"Why, yes," he replied. "I think I did. As I said a while ago, I've
always believed him to be a sport who was strictly on the level--though
I'll admit there are a lot of men I know who think just the other way
around. But, though I do believe it, I'll agree, as I said before, he'd
been a little different and had mixed with a queer lot of characters.
Well, from what he dropped, the matter he had in hand that night had one
of these people somewhere in the background."

"You got no details?"

"Not any. Part of the time he talked _at_ me--not _to_ me, at all. He
was regretting certain things; how he'd given up opportunities of profit
so as to hold a place for himself in the society he moved in. He argued
that if a man could bet on the turn of a card, or a wheel, in a place
like Danforth's--which is an illegal establishment--why could he not do
certain other things, which were also merely illegal, without losing
caste. He had a habit of arguing this way when he was broke; but I never
took him quite seriously. As a matter of fact, I never was sure as to
what he meant; once or twice I asked, but he always turned the matter
off, and began to talk about something else.

"He was always close about details or confidences in things like that,"
proceeded Dennison. "I've sometimes thought this reticence is what made
the talk about him. But he was very angry that night; he stormed up and
down," and here Dennison gestured with his cigarette, with the manner of
one who is determined to hold back nothing. "And he did drop something,
after a little, something, I'll admit, that made me wonder what was up."

"Have you any objections to telling what that was?" asked Ashton-Kirk,
smoothly.

"No, of course not." Dennison looked exceedingly virtuous. "If it'll do
any good, it ought to be known. I think I told you, last time we met,
that when Tom Burton left me that night he said he was going to see a
man on some bu