gambling outfit from the West has bedevilled one or two good
citizens in Gotham town."

Dr. Bailey shrugged his big, fat shoulders.

"It's no secret, I suppose, that the Minnisink crowd is being talked
about," he grunted.

Ellis said in a low but perfectly distinct voice:

"Neither is it any secret that Jack Dysart has been hit hard in National
Ice."

Peter Tappan slipped from his seat on the table and threw away his
cigarette:

"One thing is sure as soubrettes," he observed; "the Clearing House
means to get rid of certain false prophets. The game law is off
prophets--in the fall. There'll be some good gunning--under the laws of
New Jersey."

"I hope they'll be careful not to injure any marble columns or ruin the
gold-leaf on the ceilings," sneered Ellis. "Come on, some of you
fellows, and fix the buckle in this cursed stock of mine."

"I thought fixing stocks was rather in your own line," said Duane to the
foxy-visaged and celebrated manipulator, who joined very heartily in the
general and unscrupulous laugh.

A moment later, Dysart, who had heard every word from the doorway,
walked silently back to his own room and sat down, resting his temples
between his closed fists.

The well-cut head was already silvery gray at the temples; one month had
done it. When animated, his features still appeared firm and of good
colour; relaxed, they were loose and pallid, and around the mouth fine
lines appeared. Often a man's hands indicate his age, and his betrayed
him, giving the lie to his lithe, straight, graceful figure. The man had
aged amazingly in a month or two.

Matters were not going very well with him. For one thing, the Half-Moon
Trust Company had finally terminated all dealings with the gorgeous
marble-pillared temple of high finance of which he was a director. For
another, he had met the men of the West, and for them he had done things
which he did not always care to think about. For another, money was
becoming disturbingly scarce, and the time was already past for selling
securities.

During the last year he had been vaguely aware of some occult hostility
to himself and his enterprises--not the normal hostility of business
aggression--but something indefinable--merely negative at first, then
more disturbing, sinister, foreboding; something in the very air to
which he was growing more sensitive every day.

By all laws of finance, by all signs and omens, a serious reaction from
the saturnalia of the las