man's lips twisted in a smile of cool irony--"you have
come as the guardians of conservatism to admonish me, the fractious
child of the Dollar family. It is delightful, gentlemen, to encounter
in actual life so humorous a situation." Then the mouth line grew set
again and the voice hardened. "Well, I make you no pledges. I say to
you, to hell with the laws you draw for your own advantage and break
when it suits your profit. I acknowledge no vested right in you to
assail me as a wrecker--you who have risen on wreckage. You will not
obliterate me. You will not even try."

Harrison from his chair gazed thoughtfully and silently out of the
window. He watched a gull dip over the East River. He shifted the cigar
to the other side of his mouth and across his gray eyes flickered a
ghost of amusement. After a long pause he inquired in an impassive
voice:

"Why?"

"Because just as you at first accepted me for my usefulness, so you will
again come to me when you need me, and you know you will need me. We are
playing the same game and it's no child's kissing game. When you have
both the wish and power to crush me, I shall expect no kindly warning at
your hands. When you need me, you will let no dislike bar my door to
your coming. By the way, why did you come?"

"Your ticker isn't silent out there. It's not your custom to be
uninformed." It was Malone who spoke. "You know that the floor is
seething--and why!"

"I know that the market opened quiet and that later Coal Tars broke and
there is a flurry--a panicky feeling perhaps. It doesn't surprise me."

For an instant Malone regarded his former protege across the table.
Hamilton Burton's fingers had fallen on a small bronze paper-weight. It
was an eagle with spread wings, not the bird of freedom, but the eagle
of the emperor's standards.

"You perplex me," admitted the elder financier shortly. "You make great
pretense of open frankness; brazen defiance even, and yet you choose to
cloak every attack and to move by stealth. You know that just now such a
flurry may precipitate a general panic that will shake and waste the
nation like a fever in its marrow. Apparently you are deliberately
breaking the market, yet you speak innocently of the matter as of
something with which you have no concern."

For an instant it was Burton who laughed.

"And even yet, gentlemen, you have for active business men, bent on
stemming a tide of disaster, spent much time in generalities and little