feel downright peculiar himself with Vining
threshing about the living-room and babbling incoherent agony, shook his
old friend with no gentle hand as he demanded:

"Say, you! What is it now? What in blazes got you that time, Anthony?
Are you going to have a fit?"

"Johnson!" Anthony said feebly, clutching coldly at Mr. Boller's plump
hand. "Oh, Johnson!"

"_What?_"

"Her father! She's the daughter of Theodore Dalton, Johnson! She's the
daughter of the man they call the liniment king!"

"Yes?" said Johnson Boller.

The icy hand closed tighter about his own, rousing something almost akin
to sympathy in Johnson Boller's bosom and causing him to lay a soothing
hand on Anthony's shoulder--for so do men cling to a raft in mid-ocean.

"Johnson," Anthony Fry said piteously. "I've kidnaped the daughter of
the only man in the world who can ruin me, and he'll do it!"

CHAPTER XI

The Other Lady

It was plain enough to Johnson Boller.

Anthony, poor devil, was raving at last! Since there was no one likely
to ruin Anthony, the strain had developed the illusion that--or was it
an illusion? Anthony had calmed these last few seconds, clinging
childlike to his friend; his eyes denoted the general state of mind of a
hunted doe, but there was nothing more abnormal.

"Say, kid," Johnson Boller began kindly. "You----"

"You don't understand," Anthony said hoarsely but more quietly. "I've
never told you about the Dalton matter, because I've tried my best to
forget the interview--but Dalton is the man who controls virtually the
whole proprietary liniment market, barring only Fry's Imperial. My--my
liniment," said Anthony, and there was an affectionate note in his voice
which Johnson Boller had never heard before in connection with the
Imperial, "is the only one he has failed to acquire."

"Yes?" said Johnson Boller, with rising interest.

Anthony smiled wanly, dizzily.

"Well, Dalton came to the office one day about five years ago, having
made an appointment to meet me personally there. He wanted to buy us
out, and I wouldn't hear of it--partly sentiment and partly because he
didn't want to pay enough. Then he tried his usual tactics of
threatening to drive Imperial off the market, and I sat down and pointed
out to him just what it would cost and what it would gain him. He's a
hard devil, Johnson, and he was pretty angry, yet he saw the reason in
what I told him."

"Go on," said Johnson Boller.

"We parted on