ey are divided, since all belongs to him, whenever he wishes to
claim it.

He pierced me with his blue eyes, keen as a youth's, though his face
was seamed with the scars of seventy tumultuous years. He extended
toward me over the table his broad, stubby white hand--the hand of a
builder, of a constructive genius. "How are you, Blacklock?" said he.
"What can I do for you?" He just touched my hand before dropping it,
and resuming that idol-like pose. But although there was only repose
and deliberation in his manner, and not a suggestion of haste, I, like
everyone who came into that room and that presence, had a sense of an
interminable procession behind me, a procession of men who must be
seen by this master-mover, that they might submit important and
pressing affairs to him for decision. It was unnecessary for him to
tell anyone to be brief and pointed.

"I shall have to go to the wall today," said I, taking a paper from my
pocket, "unless you save me. Here is a statement of my assets and
liabilities. I call to your attention my Coal holdings. I was one of
the eight men whom Roebuck has got round him for the new combine--it
is a secret, but I assume you know all about it."

He laid the paper before him, put on his nose-glasses and looked at
it.

"If you will save me," I continued, "I will transfer to you, in a
block, all my Coal holdings. They will be worth double my total
liabilities within three months--as soon as this lockout is settled
and the reorganization is announced. I leave it to your sense of
justice to decide whether I shall have any part of them back when this
storm blows over."

"Why didn't you go to Roebuck?" he asked, without looking up.

"Because it is he that has stuck the knife into me."

"Why?"

"I don't know. I suspect the Manasquale properties, which I brought
into the combine, have some value, which no one but Roebuck, and
perhaps Langdon, knows about--and that I in some way was dangerous to
them through that fact. They haven't given me time to look into it."

A grim smile flitted over his face. "You've been too busy getting
married, eh?" And I then thought that the grim smile was associated
with his remark. I was soon to know that it was an affirmation of my
shrewd guess about Manasquale.

"Exactly," said I. "It's another case of unbuckling for the wedding
feast and getting assassinated as a penalty. Do you wish me to explain
anything on that list--do you want any details of the combi