im; but
if it'll relieve your mind any, I've heard him mentioned. He used to
handle Pyramid Gordon's private affairs."

"Ah! Gordon!" says Steele, his shifty eyes narrowin'. "Yes, yes! Died
abroad a month or so ago, didn't he?"

"In Rome," says I. "The rheumatism got to his heart. He could see it
comin' to him before he left. Poor old Pyramid!"

"Indeed?" says Steele. "And was Gordon--er--a friend of yours, may I
ask?"

"One of my best," says I. "Know him, did you?"

Mr. Steele darts a quick glance at me. "Rather!" says he.

"Then there can't be so much myst'ry about this note, then," says I.
"Maybe he's willed us a trinket or so. Friend of yours too, I expect?"

J. Bayard almost grins at that. "I have no good reason to doubt," says
he, "that Pyramid Gordon hated me quite as thoroughly and actively as I
disliked him."

"He was good at that too," says I. "Had a little run-in with him, did
you?"

"One that lasted something like twenty years," says Steele.

"Oh!" says I. "Fluffs or finance?"

[Illustration: "I wouldn't have anything happen to you for the world,"
says I.]

"Purely a business matter," says he. "It began in Chicago, back in the
good old days when trade was unhampered by fool administrations. At the
time, if I may mention the fact, I had some little prominence as a pool
organizer. We were trying to corner July wheat,--getting along very
nicely too,--when your friend Gordon got in our way. He had managed to
secure control of a dinky grain-carrying railroad and a few elevators.
On the strength of that he demanded that we let him in. So we were
forced to take measures to--er--eliminate him."

"And Pyramid wouldn't be eliminated, eh?" says I.

J. Bayard shrugs his shoulders careless and spreads out his hands.
"Gordon luck!" says he. "Of course we were unprepared for such methods
as he employed against us. Up to that time no one had thought of
stealing an advance copy of the government crop report and using it to
break the market. However, it worked. Our corner went to smash. I was
cleaned out. You might have thought that would have satisfied most men;
but not Pyramid Gordon! Why, he even pushed things so far as to sell out
my office furniture, and bought the brass signs, with my name on them,
to hang in his own office, as a Sioux Indian displays a scalp, or a
Mindanao head hunter ornaments his gatepost with his enemy's skull. That
was the beginning; and while my opportunities for paying off the s