e ce'tainly relieved my mind," murmured Clay lazily. "What's
yore own notion of what I ought to do to you, Bromfield? You invited
me out as a friend and led me into a trap after you had fixed it up.
Wouldn't a first-class thrashin' with a hawsswhip be about right?"

Bromfield turned pale. "I've got a weak heart," he faltered.

"I'll say you have," agreed Clay. "It's pumpin' water in place of
blood right now, I'll bet. Did you ever have a real honest-to-God
lickin' when you was a boy?"

The New Yorker knew he was helpless before this clear-eyed, supple
athlete who walked like a god from Olympus. One can't lap up half a
dozen highballs a day for an indeterminate number of years, without
getting flabby, nor can he spend himself in feeble dissipations and
have reserves of strength to call upon when needed. The tongue went
dry in his mouth. He began to swallow his Adam's apple.

"I'm not well to-day," he said, almost in a whisper.

"Let's look at this thing from all sides," went on Clay cheerfully.
"If we decide by a majority of the voting stock--and I'm carryin'
enough proxies so that I've got control--that you'd ought to have a
whalin', why, o' course, there's nothin' to it but get to business and
make a thorough job."

"Maybe I didn't do right about Maddock's."

"No mebbe about that. You acted like a yellow hound."

"I'm sorry. I apologize."

"I don't reckon I can use apologies. I might make a bargain with you."

"I'll be glad to make any reasonable bargain."

"How'd this do? I'll vote my stock and proxies in the Bromfield
Punishment Company, Limited, against the whalin', and you vote yore
stock and proxies in the Bird Cage Company to return the present board
and directorate."

"That's coercion."

"Well, so it is."

"The law--"

"Did you go hire a lawyer for an opinion before you paid Durand to do
me up?"

"You've got no right to hold me a prisoner here to help Whitford."

"All right, I won't. I'll finish my business with you and when I'm
through, you can go to the annual meetin'--if you feel up to travelin'
that far."

"I'll give you a thousand dollars to let me alone."

"That'd be a thousand and fifty you had given me, wouldn't it?"
returned Lindsay gayly.

Tears of vexation stood in Bromfield's eyes. "All right. Let me go.
I'll be fair to Whitford and arrange a deal with him."

"Get the stockholders who're with you on the 'phone and tell 'em to
vote their stock as Whitford thi