d slowly. "We represent a great
power, and a power for which we mean to fight. When I talk to you of
money, I mean it. We will raise a million dollars for you before midday
to-morrow, if you leave that paper in our hands."

"We may shorten this discussion," Norris Vine answered, "by my assuring
you solemnly that neither one nor twenty million dollars would purchase
from me this document. I have spent years, and every scrap of such
ability as I possess, in writing against, and lecturing upon, and
attacking in every way that occurred to me, your abominable methods for
collecting into the hands of a few what should be the comfort and
happiness of the many. I mean the wealth of this country. Not even at
the peril of my life would I part with the most efficient weapon which
has ever yet come into my hands."

"Then why, Mr. Vine," Littleson asked, bending over from his place,
"have you come here to see us?"

"I have come," Vine answered, "because against you personally I bear no
malice. I am not well acquainted with the laws of this country, but it
seems to me that the verbatim publication of this paper would mean for
you something more than financial ruin. It would probably mean the
inside of a prison. Personally, I have not the least doubt that every
one of you deserves to see the inside of a prison, but I am not
vindictive. I give you your chance. If a trip to Europe in the _Kaiser
Wilhelm_ to-morrow morning seems to you opportune, you will certainly
escape reading the record of your own folly in the evening papers."

Weiss threw away his half-chewed cigar, and taking another from the box,
lit it deliberately.

"Now, Mr. Vine," he said, "you are a young man whose attention has
never been turned to the practical affairs of life. You are a literary
person, and you walk a good deal with your head in the clouds. You
haven't the hard common sense of us business men to be able to determine
exactly what the result in a commonplace world is of any definite
action. I can assure you that no prison in America could ever hold me
and my friends, and that our risk is not in any way so serious as you
imagine. But, leaving out the question of our personal safety or
convenience, I want to put this to you. If you publish the contents of
that document in the evening papers to-morrow, you will produce in
America the greatest and most ruinous financial crisis that the country
has ever known."

For the first time Vine's cold, immobile fa