s the pause that a man will make when he
has to confront a momentous problem that is to have an effect on his
after-life. I did not intend to accept his alluring terms; it had been
my resolve at the outset to leave his employ should he refuse to abandon
his scheme of loot.

"In the few seconds that I stood facing him, the light of lust came in
his eyes, he became the incarnation of greed. A snake that sees its
quarry edging inch by inch toward the fangs of death could not have had
a more exultant, triumphant look shoot from its treacherous eyes.

"'You will be a man,' said he; 'you will listen to reason.' He uttered
these words not as a query, but as an assertion of fact.

"'I shall do as I have said,' was my reply, and I walked toward the
door.

"'But you do not mean to say that you refuse to become a partner?' he
ejaculated in amazement.

"'That is just what I mean. I tell you once for all that I will not be a
party to such crimes as you propose to commit.' "'Then I warn you, young
man,' he thundered, losing his self control, 'that if you attempt to
thwart me in my business I shall make it uncomfortable for you in this
city.

"'Yes, I tell you now once for all, that you will find me the most
unmerciful enemy that was ever known. I have too much at stake to let a
fool of a man upset me.

"'Do you think that the world will credit the utterances of a nobody as
against mine? Why, you will be lodged in an insane asylum. I shall have
that matter fixed at once.

"'By the way, where are the bonds that I entrusted to your care last
week?'

"'What bonds?' I demanded hotly. For even then I saw the purport of the
question.

"'What bonds? Ah, that will not satisfy a jury.'

"And the banker chuckled at the thought that he had struck upon the
proper weapon with which to crush me.

"In the confidence of his own power, and no doubt as a means of avoiding
publicity, he thought that the affair had gone to a point where he might
appear magnanimous. "'I do not hold any ill will toward you,' he
continued, 'it is as a friend that I speak. You are suffering from a
sensitive conscience, which is out of place in this age and generation.

"'I can pity you, but of course it would be impossible for me to allow
sentiment to rule me in business.

"'We will let this evening pass out of our minds. You will return to
your duties, and in the future let my outside matters be distinct from
your work and concern. But remember, not a wor