to make the crash a mighty one. Steve still speculated, secure, he
fancied, in his surplus savings; his speculations all ended
disastrously and his factories were no longer hustling places of
commerce. It was a case of keen competition for orders, and closing
round Steve relentlessly was a circle of enemies forming a gigantic
trust which played the big-fish-swallow-the-little-fish game. Knowing
of Steve's disaster on the stock exchange, as well as the thin ice on
which his industries were managing to survive, the trust now invited
him to become one of them--at a ridiculous figure--or else be squeezed
out of the game overnight.

Steve's first emotion upon receiving the offer was nonchalance and
determination to appear unconcerned and weather it through--so he held
out as long as he could, plunging in the stock market, with the result
that he was beaten as if he had been a street vendor whose wares were
confiscated by the police authorities.

It was not a time to do some new devil-may-care thing. Fortunes were
not achieved as they had been from 1914 to 1919, and Steve told
himself in vain that since it was luck that had made him it must be
luck that should again bring him out on top of the heap. All at once
luck seemed no jaunty chap with endless pockets of gold but rather a
disgruntled, threadbare old chap who said: "None of you ever treats me
rightly when I do smile on you; now go take care of yourselves any way
you like, for you have ruined me, too."

With this pleasant state of affairs Steve came home to the Villa Rosa
one April day, half of him wondering if Mary would let him come and
tell his story and the other half trying to hope that the news of his
failure would prove the saving grace between the Gorgeous Girl and
himself, that she would accept his plea of becoming "just folks" and
starting anew, her father's wealth in the background, entirely removed
from Steve's new field of endeavours.

[Illustration: "A get-rich-quick man always pays for his own speed"]

It did not take long to disillusion Steve as to this. Beatrice
accepted the news of the stock failure and the new trust so easily
that he saw she was incapable of changing her viewpoint.

"Why gamble so, my dear Stevuns?" she began, almost petulantly. "And
do you know that every time I make engagements for you you are late?
You are nearly a half hour late to-night."

"I am losing the factory as well. I'll have to sell out for a song. I
can't compete