n reaching his office on lower Broadway, Stuart rang Bivens's
telephone, and the president of the American Chemical Company made an
engagement to call at once.

Stuart would not have stooped to the trick of keeping his young
millionaire visitor waiting, on imaginary business, but he was grateful
for the timely call of a client who kept him in consultation for
fifteen minutes while Bivens patiently waited his turn in the
reception-room, his wealth and prestige all lost on the imperturbable
office boy, who sat silently chewing gum and reading a serial.

The first view of Bivens was always unimpressive. He was short, thin,
and looked almost frail at first glance. A second look gave the
impression of wiry reserve force in his compact frame. His hair was jet
black and thinning slightly on top which gave him the appearance of
much greater age than he could really claim. His thin features were
regular, and his face was covered with a thick black beard which he
kept trimmed to a keen point on the chin. His most striking features
were a high massive forehead, abnormally long for the size of his body,
and a pair of piercing, bead-like black eyes. These eyes were seldom
still, but when they rested on an object they fairly bored through it
with their penetrating light.

He rarely spoke except to a purpose, and his manners were quiet, almost
furtive. He had thus early in his career gained a nickname that was
peculiarly significant in Wall Street. He was known as _The Weasel_.

His whole makeup, physical and mental, was curiously complex--a mixture
of sobriety and greed, piety and cruelty, tenderness and indomitable
will, simplicity of tastes with boundless ambition.

His friendship for Stuart and his deference to him personally and
socially dated from their boyhood in North Carolina--and particularly
from an incident which occurred in their college days. Bivens's father
had been a notorious coward in the Confederate army and had at last
deserted the service. A number of very funny stories about his actions
in battle had become current everywhere. On Bivens's arrival at
college, a particularly green freshman, Stuart had discovered a group
of his classmates hazing him. They had forced the coward's son to mount
a box and repeat to the crowd the funny stories about the "valour" of
his father. The boy, scared half out of his wits, stood stammering and
perspiring and choking with shame as he tried to obey his tormentors.

Stuart pro