his progenitor's, but a trifle more insistent.
The waistcoat was speckled with red; the scarf a brilliant scarlet
decorated with a horseshoe set in diamonds, and the shoes patent
leather. He was one size smaller than his father and had one-tenth of
his brains. With regard to every other measurement, however, there was
not the slightest doubt but that in a few years he would equal his
distinguished father's outlines, a fact already discernible in his
middle distance. In looking around for the missing nine-tenths of gray
matter his father had found it under Philip Colton's hat, and the
formation of the firm, with himself as special and his son as junior,
had been the result.

At half-past ten Mr. Eggleston began to be nervous. Every now and then
he would walk out into the main office, interview one of the clerks as
to his knowledge of Phil's whereabouts and return again to his private
office, where he occupied himself drumming on the desk with the end of
his gold pencil, and watching the clock. The junior had no such
misgivings--none of any kind. He had a game of polo that afternoon at
three, and was chiefly concerned lest the day's work might intervene.
The signing of similar papers had once kept him at the office until
five.

At eleven o'clock a messenger with a bank-book fastened to his waist
by a steel chain, brought a message. "The treasurer of the Seaboard,
with the company's attorney, would be at Mr. Eggleston's office," the
message read, "in half an hour, to sign the papers. Would he be sure
to have Mr. Philip Colton present." (The special's social and
financial position earned him this courtesy; most of the other
magnates had to go to the trust company to culminate such
transactions.)

The character of the message and Philip's continued delay only
increased Mr. Eggleston's uneasiness. The stock clerk was called in,
as well as one of the book-keepers. "What word, if any, had Mr. Colton
given the night before?" he asked impatiently. "What hour did he leave
the office? Did any one know of any business which could have detained
him? had any telegram been received and mislaid?"--the sum of the
replies being that neither word, letter nor telegram had been
received, to which was added the proffered information that judging
from Mr. Colton's instructions the night before that gentleman must
certainly be ill or he would have "showed up" before this.

A few minutes before half-past eleven the treasurer and his attorne