it as bad as that?" he murmured.

Hastings sighed happily.

"It was," he said, "but this morning the Young Man of Wall Street did
us a good turn--saved us--saved our creditors, saved our homes, saved
our honor. We're going to start fresh and pay our debts, and we agreed
the first debt we paid would be the small one we owe you. You've
brought us more than we've given, and if you'll stay with us we're
going to 'see' your fifty and raise it a hundred. What do you say?"

Young Mr. Thorne leaped to his feet. What he said was: "Where'n hell's
my hat?"

But by the time he had found the hat and the door he mended his manners.

"I say, 'Thank you a thousand times,"' he shouted over his shoulder.
"Excuse me, but I've got to go. I've got to break the news to--"

He did not explain to whom he was going to break the news; but Hastings
must have guessed, for again he sighed happily and then, a little
hysterically laughed aloud. Several months had passed since he had
laughed aloud.

In his anxiety to break the news Champ Thorne almost broke his neck.
In his excitement he could not remember whether the red flash meant the
elevator was going down or coming up, and sooner than wait to find out
he started to race down eighteen flights of stairs when fortunately the
elevator-door swung open.

"You get five dollars," he announced to the elevator man, "if you drop
to the street without a stop. Beat the speed limit! Act like the
building is on fire and you're trying to save me before the roof falls."

Senator Barnes and his entire family, which was his daughter Barbara,
were at the Ritz-Carlton. They were in town in August because there
was a meeting of the directors of the Brazil and Cuyaba Rubber Company,
of which company Senator Barnes was president. It was a secret
meeting. Those directors who were keeping cool at the edge of the
ocean had been summoned by telegraph; those who were steaming across
the ocean, by wireless.

Up from the equator had drifted the threat of a scandal, sickening,
grim, terrible. As yet it burned beneath the surface, giving out only
an odor, but an odor as rank as burning rubber itself. At any moment
it might break into flame. For the directors, was it the better wisdom
to let the scandal smoulder, and take a chance, or to be the first to
give the alarm, the first to lead the way to the horror and stamp it
out?

It was to decide this that, in the heat of August, the directors and
the pres