in the lawyer's eyes.

"You seem to," was the laconic reply. "Now let us see exactly what it is
that you want Mr. Farley to concede."

"I want him to turn over the entire control of the company's business,
operative and financial, to my father."

The lawyer smiled again.

"That is a pretty big asking. Have you any reason to suppose that Mr.
Farley will accede to any such demand?"

"Yes; I have very good reasons, but I reckon we needn't go into them
here and now. The time is too short; their liner sails at ten."

The attorney tilted his chair and became reflective.

"The simple way out of it is to have Mr. Farley constitute your father,
or yourself, his proxy to vote his stock at a certain specified meeting
of the stock-holders, which can be called later. Of course, with a
majority vote of the stock, you can rearrange matters to suit
yourselves, subject only to Mr. Farley's disarrangement when he resumes
control of his holdings. How would that serve?"

"You're the doctor," said Tom bruskly. "Any way to get him out and get
my father in."

"It's the simplest way, as I say. But if the property is worth anything
at all, I should think Mr. Farley would fight you to a finish before he
would consent."

"You fix up the papers, Mr. Croswell, and I'll see to it that he
consents. Make the proxy run in my father's name."

The attorney went into another room and dictated to his stenographer.
While he was absent, Tom sat, watch in hand, counting the minutes. It
was his first pitched battle with the Farleys, and victory promised. But
with industrial panic in the air the victory threatened to be of the
Cadmean sort, and a scowl of anxiety gathered between his eyes.

"Never mind," he gritted, with an out-thrust of the square jaw; "it's
the Gordon fighting chance; and pappy says that's all we've ever
asked--it's all I'm going to ask, anyway. But I wish Ardea wasn't going
over with that crowd!"

The conference in Room 327, Fifth Avenue Hotel, held while the carriages
were waiting to take the steamer party to the pier, was brief and
businesslike. Something to Tom's surprise, Major Dabney was present; and
a little later he learned, with a shock of resentment, that the Major
was also a minority stock-holder in the moribund Chiawassee
Consolidated. The master of Deer Trace was as gracious to Caleb Gordon's
son as only a Dabney knew how to be.

"Nothing could give me greateh pleasure, my deah boy, than this plan of
having you