y hands.
Now it is my scheme, mine and the kid brother's, and I don't propose to
allow that."

"Well, Sam," said Mr. Stevens slowly, "you know capital of late has had
a lot of experience with corporate business, and it isn't the
fashionable thing this year for the control and the capital to be in
separate hands--right at the very beginning."

This was the signal for the struggle, and Sam plunged earnestly into
the conflict. At three-fifteen he suddenly rose and made his adieus.
He would have liked to stay until Miss Josephine came back, so that he
could make one more desperate attempt to set himself right with her,
but there was that deferred engagement with Blackrock, and reluctantly
he whirled back to Meadow Brook.

CHAPTER IX

WHEREIN SAM TURNER PROVES HIMSELF TO BE A VIOLENT FLIRT

The rest of that week was a worried and an anxious one for Sam. He
sent daily advices to his brother, and he received daily advices in
return. The people upon whom he had originally counted to form the
Marsh Pulp Company had set themselves coldly against the matter of
control, and on comparing the apparent situation in New York with the
situation at Meadow Brook, he made sure that he could secure more
advantageous terms with the Princeman crowd. He spent his time in
wrestling with his prospective investors both singly and in groups, but
they were obdurate. They liked his company, they saw in it tremendous
possibilities, but they did not intend to invest their money where they
could not vote it. That was flat!

This was on the business side. About the really important matter of
Miss Stevens, since his most recent bad performance, the time when he
had made the special trip to see her and had spent his time in talking
business with her father, he had not been able to come near her. She
was always engaged. He saw her riding with Hollis; he saw her driving
with Princeman; he saw her playing tennis with Billy Westlake, but the
greatest boon he ever received was a nod and a pleasant word. He
industriously sent her flowers. She as industriously sent him nice,
polite little notes of thanks.

In the meantime, alternating with his marsh pulp wrangles, he worked
like a Trojan at the athletic graces he should have cultivated in his
younger days. He rode every morning; he practised every day at tennis
and croquet; every evening he bowled; and every time some one sat at
the piano and played dance music and the young people fel