ean.

"How many shares?"

"Have to ask Kennedy & Balch; they're my brokers. I guess about some
seven or eight hundred shares."

"Wha'd I tell you? Wha'd I _tell_ you?" again shouted the oldest
director, and, as if despairing of an answer, he swore surprisingly for
one of his refined garniture and aroma.

"Find out something in this office?" asked Breede, evenly.

"Why wouldn't I? I found out something the minute you sent people to me
with that 'By the way--' stuff. I knew it as quick as you had them
breaking their ankles trying to get my fifty shares. Knew it the very
minute you sent that--that slinking gazelle to me." He pointed at Tully.

[Illustration: "Oh, put up your trinkets!" said Bean, with a fine
affectation of weariness]

He had not meant to call Tully that. It rushed out. Tully wriggled
uneasily in his chair at the desk, blushed well into his yellow beard,
then drew out a kerchief of purest white silk and began nervously to
polish his glasses.

"Hoo-shaw-Ha-ha-Hooshway!"

It was Breede, with, for the moment, a second purple face on the Board
of Directors. Neither Bean nor Tully ever knew whether he had suppressed
a laugh or a sneeze.

"Come, come, _come_!" broke in the oldest, sweeping the largest director
aside with one finger as he pulled a chair to the table.

"This'll never do with _us_, you know! How much, how much, how much?"

He again poised the chastely wrought fountain pen of gold above the
dainty check-book in Morocco leather.

"Have to give 'em up you know; can't allow _that_ sort of underhand
work; where'd the world be, where'd it be, where'd it _be_? Sign an
order; tell me what you paid. Take your word for it!"

He was feeling for Bean the contempt which a really distinguished
safe-blower is said to feel for the cheap thief who purloins bottles of
milk from basement doorways in the gray of dawn.

"Now, now, _now_, boy!" The pen was still poised.

"Oh, put up your trinkets," said Bean with a fine affectation of
weariness.

The old gentleman sat back and exhaled a scented but vicious breath.
There was silence. It seemed to have become evident that the
unprincipled young scoundrel must be taken seriously.

Then spoke the largest director, removing from his lips a cigarette
which his own bulk seemed to reduce to something for a microscope only.
He had been silent up to this moment, and his words now caused Bean the
first discomfort he had felt.

"You will come here to-morrow