lieve me, Jim, when I say that my pride in your career is
genuine?"

"I've never doubted it," was the quick answer.

"Then two suggestions will be enough. Perhaps I wish to get even with
some men who have done me a dirty trick or two, and perhaps,
incidentally, in the excitement which will follow this exposure of
fraud and crime, I may make an honest penny--is that enough?"

"Quite."

"And you'll make the attack at once?"

Stuart glanced rapidly through the first page of the document and his
eyes began to dance with excitement.

"The only favour I ask," Bivens added, "is twenty-four hours' notice
before you act."

"I'll let you know."

Stuart rose quickly, placed the document in his inside pocket and
hurried home.

CHAPTER IV

EVERY MAN'S SHADOW

The deeper the young lawyer probed into the mass of corruption Bivens
had placed in his hands the more profound became his surprise. At first
he was inclined to scout the whole story as an exaggeration invented in
the fierce fight with financial foes.

It was incredible!

That men whose names were the synonyms of honesty and fair dealing, men
entrusted with the management of companies whose assets represented the
savings of millions of poor men, the sole defense of millions of
helpless women and children--that these trusted leaders of the world
were habitually prostituting their trusts for personal gain, staggered
belief.

He delayed action and began a careful, patient, thorough investigation.
As it proceeded, his amazement increased. He found that Bivens had only
scratched the surface of the truth. He found that the system of fraud
and chicanery had spread from the heads of the big companies until the
whole business world was honeycombed with its corruption.

New York, the financial centre of the Nation, had gone mad with the
insane passion for money at all hazards--by all means, fair or foul.
The Nation was on the tidal wave of the most wonderful industrial boom
in its history. The price of stocks had reached fabulous figures and
still soared to greater heights. Millionaires were springing up, like
mushrooms, in a night. Waiters at fashionable hotels, who hung on the
chairs of rich guests with more than usual fawning, were boasting of
fortunes made in a day. Broadway and Central Park and every avenue
leading to the long stretches of good country roads flashed with
hundreds of new automobiles, crowded with strange smiling faces.

Two months had p