the man who spoke to him of them the indifference, almost contempt, of an impatient young soul who in the years just behind him, had often wagered his chance of his morning's coffee against some other fellow's month's pay feeling that he was putting up double.

It seemed the sense of ownership was dulled in one who had seen magnificent properties masterless, or apparently belonging to some limp, bloodstained bundle[Pg 24] of flesh that lay in one of the rooms. In vain Cummings urged the state of the market, repeating with more particularity and force what Whipple had said. The mines were tied up by strike; their stock, while perfectly good, was down to twenty cents on the dollar; to sell now would be madness. Worth only repeated doggedly.

[Pg 24]

"I've got to have the money—Monday morning—ten o'clock. I don't care what you sell—or hock. Get it."

"See here," the lawyer was puzzled, and therefore unprofessionally out of temper. "Even sacrificing your stuff in the most outrageous manner, I couldn't realize enough—not by ten o'clock Monday. You'll have to go to your father. You can catch the five-five for Santa Ysobel."

I could see Worth choke back a hot-tempered refusal of the suggestion. The funds he'd got to have, even if he went through some humiliation to get them.

"At that," he said slowly, "father wouldn't have any great amount of cash on hand. Say I went to him with the story—and took the cat-hauling he'll give me—should I be much better off?"

"Sure you would." Cummings leaned back. I saw he considered his point made. "Whipple would rather take their own bank stock than anything else. Your father has just acquired a big block of it. Act while there's time. Better go out there and see him now—at once."

"I'll think about it," Worth nodded. "You dig for me what you can and never quit." And he applied himself to the demands of the down-town traffic.

[Pg 25]"Well," Cummings said, "drop me at the next corner, please. I've got an engagement with a man here."

[Pg 25]

Worth swung in and stopped. Cummings left us. As we began to worm a slow way toward my office, I suggested,

"You'll come upstairs with me, and—er—sort of outline a policy? I ought to have any possible information you can give me, so's not to 

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