ar, weren't you?"

"That be d----d!" said his visitor bitterly. "All his interests are
the other way, and in a trade of this kind, you know, Stacy, that a man
would sacrifice his own brother. Do you suppose that he'd let up on a
sure thing that he's got just because he and I fought side by side at
Cerro Gordo? Come! what are you giving us? You're the last man I ever
expected to hear that kind of flapdoodle from. If it's because your bank
has got some other interest and you can't advise me, why don't you say
so?" Nevertheless, in spite of Stacy's abrupt disclaimer, he left a few
minutes later, half convinced that Stacy's lukewarmness was due to some
adverse influence. Other callers were almost as quickly disposed of, and
at the end of an hour Stacy found himself again alone.

But not apparently in a very satisfied mood. After a few moments of
purely mechanical memoranda-making, he rose abruptly and opened a small
drawer in a cabinet, from which he took a letter still in its envelope.
It bore a foreign postmark. Glancing over it hastily, his eyes at
last became fixed on a concluding paragraph. "I hope," wrote his
correspondent, "that even in the rush of your big business you will
sometimes look after Barker. Not that I think the dear old chap will
ever go wrong--indeed, I often wish I was as certain of myself as of
him and his insight; but I am afraid we were more inclined to be merely
amused and tolerant of his wonderful trust and simplicity than to really
understand it for his own good and ours. I know you did not like his
marriage, and were inclined to believe he was the victim of a rather
unscrupulous father and a foolish, unequal girl; but are you satisfied
that he would have been the happier without it, or lived his perfect
life under other and what you may think wiser conditions? If he WROTE
the poetry that he LIVES everybody would think him wonderful; for being
what he is we never give him sufficient credit." Stacy smiled grimly,
and penciled on his memorandum, "He wants it to the amount of ten
thousand dollars." "Anyhow," continued the writer, "look after him, Jim,
for his sake, your sake, and the sake of--PHIL DEMOREST."

Stacy put the letter back in its envelope, and tossing it grimly aside
went on with his calculations. Presently he stopped, restored the letter
to his cabinet, and rang a bell on his table. "Send Mr. North here,"
he said to the negro messenger. In a few moments his chief book-keeper
appeared