possibly the winning of his "street" contests.

It was the younger man who broke the silence. He did it first by striking a match on the sole of his shoe and lighting a cigar; then by crossing to one of the chairs at the oblong table, into which he literally threw himself; and as he did this, he exclaimed, with an expression of petulance that might have belonged to a boy better than to a man:

"Well, you've made a mess of it, haven't you? You have got us both into a very devil of a fix. I ought to have shot you, or myself, before I consented to such a fool plan as that one was. Oh, yes; we're in a fix all right!"

"How so?" asked the old man, rising and selecting a chair at the opposite side of the table, and calmly lighting a fresh cigar, while he swung one leg across the corner of the solid piece of furniture.

"Patricia won't stand for that little scheme of yours, not for a minute; and you know it, Uncle Steve." This was an affectionate term of familiarity which Duncan sometimes used in addressing Patricia's father. "I was afraid of it when you proposed it, but I allowed myself, like an idiot, to be influenced by you. I tell you, Langdon, she won't stand for it; not for a minute. I have made her angry, many times before now, but I have never known her to be quite so contemptuously angered."

"No," said Langdon, and he chuckled audibly. "I agree with you. I think my little girl is going to make it hot for you before we are through with this deal. In fact, I shouldn't wonder if she made it warm for both of us. She is like her old dad about one thing—she won't be driven."

The younger man said something under his breath which, because it was not audible to his companion, need not be repeated here; but it was probably not an expression that he would have used in polite society. He drummed on the table with his fingertips, and smoked savagely.

"You're mighty cheerful about it, aren't you?" he demanded, with sarcastic emphasis. "What I want to know is, how are we going to fix it up?"

"Fix what up?"

"Why, this business about collateral, and all that rot, with Patricia. How are we going to square ourselves? That's what I'd like to know! Maybe you can see a way out of it, but I'm darned if I can."

The banker took the cigar from his mouth, flicked the ashes into the cuspidor, removed 

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