ed him the
evening before. He cast them up and down and crosswise and diagonally,
balanced them and juggled them and sorted them and shifted them, until
at last he found the rat hole, and smiling grimly, placed those pages
of neat figures in a small letter file which he took from his trunk.
One thing was certain: the Meadow Brook capitalists were highly
interested in his plan, or they would never go to the trouble to
devise, so early in the game, a scheme for gaining control of the marsh
pulp corporation. Well, they were the exact people he wanted.

Immediately after breakfast Miss Stevens telephoned over to thank him
for his beautiful roses, and he had the pleasure of letting her know,
quite incidentally, that he had gone down to the rose-beds and picked
out each individual blossom himself, which, of course, accounted for
their excellence. Also he suggested coming over that morning for a
brief walk.

No, she was very sorry, but she was just making ready to go out
horseback riding with Mr. Hollis, who, by the way, was an excellent
rider; but they would be back from their canter about ten-thirty, and
if Mr. Turner cared to come over for a game of tennis before luncheon,
why--

"Sorry I can't do it," returned Mr. Turner with the deepest of genuine
regret in his tone. "My kid brother is sending me some samples of pulp
and paper which will arrive at about eleven o'clock, and I have called
a meeting of some interested parties here to examine them at about
eleven."

"Business again," she protested. "I thought you were on a vacation."

"I am," he assured her in surprise. "I never lazied around so or
frittered up so much time in my life; and I'm enjoying every second of
my freedom, too. I tell you, it's fine. But say, this meeting won't
take over an hour. Why can't I come over right after lunch?"

She was very sorry, this time a little less regretfully, that after
luncheon she had an engagement with Mr. Princeman to play a match game
of croquet. But, and here she relented a trifle, they were getting up
a hasty, informal dance over at Hollis Creek for that evening. Would
he come over?

He certainly would, and he already spoke for as many dances as she
would give him.

"I'll give you what I can," she told him; "but I've already promised
three of them to Billy Westlake, who is a divine dancer."

Sam Turner was deeply thoughtful as he turned away from the telephone.
Hollis was a superb horseback rider. Billy