t it," says I, settlin' back in the desk chair.

It's a pity too I can't give you all the high English J. Bayard uses up
in statin' this simple proposition; for he's in one of them comf'table,
expandin', after-luncheon moods, when his waist band fits tight and the
elegant language just flows from him like he had hydrant connection
with the dictionary.

It seems, though, that this Wells party had been sort of a partner of
Pyramid's back in the early days. Some sort of a buyers' pool for
Eastern coal deliveries, I believe it was, that Hackett had got into
accidental and nursed along until he found himself dividin' the cream of
the profits with only half a dozen others. Then along came Pyramid with
his grand consolidation scheme, holdin' out the bait of makin' Mr. Wells
head of the new concern and freezin' out all the rest.

Wells, he swallows it whole: only to wake up a few months later and
discover that he's been double crossed. Havin' served his turn, Gordon
has just casually spilled him overboard, thinkin' no more of doin' it
than he would of chuckin' away a half-smoked cigar.

But to Hackett Wells this was a national calamity. Havin' got in with
the easy-money bunch by a fluke in the first place, he wa'n't a man who
could come back. Course he brought suit, and wasted a lot of breath
callin' Pyramid hard names from a safe distance; but Pyramid's lawyers
wore him out in the courts, and he was too busy to care who was cussin'
him.

So Mr. Wells and his woe drops out of sight. He's managed to keep hold
of a little property that brings him in just enough to scrub along on,
and he joins that hungry-eyed, trembly-fingered fringe of margin pikers
that hangs around every hotel broker's branch in town, takin' a timid
flier now and then, but tappin' the free lunch hard and reg'lar. You
know the kind,--seedy hasbeens, with their futures all behind 'em.

And in time, broodin' over things in gen'ral, it got to Hackett Wells in
his weak spot,--heart, or liver, or something. Didn't quite finish him,
you understand, but left him on the scrapheap, just totterin' around and
stavin' off an obituary item by bein' mighty careful.

"I suppose Gordon must have heard something of the shape he was in,"
says J. Bayard, "when he included him in his list. Well, I hunted him up
the other day, in a cheap, messy flat-house to the deuce and gone up
Eighth avenue, got his story from him, and decided on a way of helping
him out."

"Want to buy