and looked up on a queer hush.

"Securities?" croaked Dykeman. "To be converted—? Oh!"

"Yes," in some surprise. "Or would the bank prefer to have them turned over in their present form?"

Again a strained moment, broken by Whipple's nervous,

[Pg 21]"Maybe that would be better," and a quickly suppressed chuckle from Cummings.

[Pg 21]

The agreement was in duplicate. It gave Worth Gilbert complete ownership of a described sole-leather suitcase and its listed contents, and, as he had demanded, it bound him to nothing save the payment. Cummings said frankly that the transaction was illegal from end to end, and that any assurance as to the bank's ceasing to pursue Clayte would amount to compounding a felony. Yet we all signed solemnly, the lawyer and I as witnesses. A financier's idea of indecency is something about money which hasn't formerly been done. The directors got sorer and sorer as Worth Gilbert's cheerfulness increased.

"Acts as though it were a damn' crap game," I heard Dykeman muttering to Sillsbee, who came back vacuously.

"Craps?—they say our boys did shoot craps a good deal over there. Well—uh—they were risking their lives."

And that's as near as any of them came, I suppose, to understanding how a weariness of the little interweaving plans of tamed men had pushed Worth Gilbert into carelessly staking his birthright on a chance that might lend interest to life, a hazard big enough to breeze the staleness out of things for him.

We were leaving the bank, Gilbert and I ahead, Cummings right at my boy's shoulder, the others holding back to speak together, (bitterly enough, if I am any guesser) when Worth said suddenly,

"You mentioned in there it's being illegal for the bank to give up the pursuit of Clayte. Seems funny[Pg 22] to me, but I suppose you know what you're talking about. Anyhow"—he was lighting another cigarette and he glanced sharply at Cummings across it—"anyhow, they won't waste their money hunting Clayte now, should you say? That's my job. That's where I get my cash back."

[Pg 22]

"Oh, that's 

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