ive you a word of advice before you start in. Skip North,
absolutely; don't breathe a word of it to him. Don't ask me why; but do
as I say. And another thing: drop into my office to-morrow before you
leave. I'll show you some figures that may help you to stir things up
properly at the New York end. Do you go direct from here?"

"No; I shall have to stop over a few days in Chicago. I know pretty well
where to put my hands on what I need; I have laid the foundations from
the bottom up by correspondence. But I want to go over the situation on
the ground before I make my grand-stand play before Mr. Colbrith and the
board of directors."

"Well, come in and get the figures, anyway: come to the private door of
my office and rap three times. It will be just as well if it isn't
generally known that you are confabbing with me. Our semiannual report
will probably be in New York ahead of you, but it won't hurt if you have
the information to work with." Evans was pushing his chair from the
table when he added: "By the way, you happened upon the exact
psychological moment to make your raid; the report coming out, and
things going to the dogs generally."

Ford's laugh was genially shrewd.

"Perhaps it wasn't so much of a happening as it appears. Didn't I tell
you that I had figured this thing out to the fourth decimal place?
Psychological moments are bigger arguments than dollars and cents,
sometimes."

The auditor had taken his hat from the waiter and was shaking hands with
his dinner companion.

"I'd like to believe you're a winner, Ford; you deserve to be. Come and
see me--and make your call upon Mr. North as brief as possible. He'll
probe you if you don't."

This was how it came about that the next morning, when Ford went to call
upon the sallow, heavy-faced, big-bodied man who sat behind the glass
door lettered "General Manager, Private,"--this after half an hour spent
in Auditor Evans' private office,--it was only to ask for leave of
absence to go East--on business of a personal nature, he explained, when
Mr. North was curious enough to ask his object.

III

LOSS AND DAMAGE

At this period of his existence, Stuart Ford troubled himself as little
as any anchorite of the desert about the eternal feminine.

It was not that he was more or less than a man, or in any sense that
anomalous and impossible thing called a woman-hater. On the contrary,
his attitude toward women in the mass was distinctly and at times