easing bewilderment.

"You've got some swell friends," he growled. "I'll bet you never met
_them_ at Healey's!"

"I meet all kinds of people in my business," said Ford. "I once sold
that man some mining stock, and the joke of it was," he added, smiling
knowingly, "it turned out to be good."

Ashton decided that the psychological moment had arrived.

"What _is_ your business?" he asked.

"I'm a company promoter," said Ford easily. "I thought I told you."

"I did not tell you that I was a company promoter, too, did I?" demanded
Ashton.

"No," answered Ford, with apparent surprise. "Are you? That's funny."

Ashton watched for the next move, but the subject seemed in no way to
interest Ford. Instead of following it up he began afresh.

"Have you any money lying idle?" he asked abruptly. "About a thousand
pounds."

Ashton recognized that the mysterious stranger was about to disclose
both himself and whatever object he had in seeking him out. He cast a
quick glance about him.

"I can always find money," he said guardedly. "What's the proposition?"

With pretended nervousness Ford leaned forward and began the story he
had rehearsed. It was a new version of an old swindle and to every
self-respecting confidence man was well known as the "sick engineer"
game. The plot is very simple. The sick engineer is supposed to be a
mining engineer who, as an expert, has examined a gold mine and reported
against it. For his services the company paid him partly in stock. He
falls ill and is at the point of death. While he has been ill much gold
has been found in the mine he examined, and the stock which he considers
worthless is now valuable. Of this, owing to his illness, he is
ignorant. One confidence man acts the part of the sick engineer, and the
other that of a broker who knows the engineer possesses the stock but
has no money with which to purchase it from him. For a share of the
stock he offers to tell the dupe where it and the engineer can be found.
They visit the man, apparently at the point of death, and the dupe gives
him money for his stock. Later the dupe finds the stock is worthless,
and the supposed engineer and the supposed broker divide the money he
paid for it. In telling the story Ford pretended he was the broker and
that he thought in Ashton he had found a dupe who would buy the stock
from the sick engineer.

As the story unfolded and Ashton appreciated the part Ford expected him
to play in it, his emotion