rom Carton."

"The secretary of Coal and Ore?"

"The same. I put him where he is--he's a valuable man--and incidentally
a member of my secret service. Malone is calling in all the proxies he
can control; he and his myrmidons. He has not taken me into his
confidence. How would you construe that?"

"As you do. He means to oust you."

Burton nodded, then a naive smile twinkled in his eyes. "What he is now
beginning to do, I went to work on ten minutes after he left my office
last spring. Many transactions, some of them of huge proportions, which
you did not understand, have since been completed in preparation for
this moment. On the floor of the Exchange my brokers have been
ostentatiously idle, but others, not known to act for me, have been
buying Coal and Ore. They have pretty well gathered in the floating
supply."

"Hasn't that been reported to Malone?"

The financier shook his head. "Trading of that character is difficult to
trace and is usually presumed to be marginal trading. To disarm possible
suspicion my recognized brokers have sold large blocks of Coal and
Ore--to my unrecognized brokers. I seem to have been unloading--while I
was doing the reverse. When the psychological moment comes, there will
be a surprise--and a raid upon the control."

"Then you are ready for the issue."

"No, not quite." Burton rose and took a turn or two across the floor. He
stopped before a small painting and spoke irrelevantly. "I always liked
Corot. The man could paint, Carl. He understood values." After this art
criticism he returned to the desk and sat down again. "No, I'm not ready
yet. I've done all that I could do by quiet preparation. The issue now
narrows to the hair balance which makes all fights crucial--and
interesting. There's a member of the state senate who holds a block I
need, and there are two banks in town that hold others. When I have that
stock I shall be master of the situation--and of Consolidated--and
Malone must take his orders from me."

"And if you fail to get it?"

"I would still be plowing rocks and milking cows, Carl, if I
acknowledged the possibility of failing in what I resolve on."

"Yet they may refuse to sell."

Hamilton Burton smiled. "That would be regrettable," he said, and his
voice was full of sympathetic softness. "Because in that event an
elderly and respected member of the senate will have to reside for a
time at Sing Sing and a couple of widely trusted banks will go to the
wall.