Neil, the next day after his talk with Minnie Bishop, had a great idea, which was nothing more nor less than a Supreme Circle Conclave, in which a picked degree team would exemplify the ritual, and to which delegates from all the local circles should be invited. They had never held a Supreme Conclave, and they needed it to arouse enthusiasm. Clover fell in with the idea at once. It would provide him with an opportunity for one of the spread-eagle speeches he was so fond of making. As this phase of the business – comprising the insurance and the lodge work – was left completely in charge of Clover and Neil, Wallingford made no objections, and, having ample funds for carrying out such a plan, it was accordingly arranged. Neil went on the road at once about this matter, but letters between himself and Minnie Bishop passed almost daily. An indefinable change had come over the girl. She had grown more earnest, for one thing, but she assumed a forced flippancy with Wallingford because she found that it was her only defense against him. She turned off his advances as jests, and her instinct of coquetry, though now she recognized it and was ashamed of it, made her able to puzzle and hold uncertainly aloof even this experienced "man of the world." It was immediately after she had jerked her hand away from under his one afternoon that, in place of the reproof he had half expected from her, she turned to him with a most dazzling smile.

"By the way, we've both forgotten something, Mr. Wallingford," she said. "Quarter day for the Bishops is long past due."

"What is it that is past due?" he asked in surprise.

"When my mother bought her stock, you know, you promised that she should have twelve per cent. interest on it, payable every three months."

"That's right," he admitted, looking at her curiously, and before she started home that evening he handed her an envelope with thirty dollars in it.

She immediately made a note of the amount and dropped it in the drawer of her desk.

"Never mind entering that in your books," he said hastily, noting her action; "just keep the memorandum until we arrange for a regular dividend, then it can all be posted at once. It's – it's a matter that has been overlooked."

She thanked him for the money and took it home with her. She had been planning for a week or more upon how to get this thirty dollars. On the very next day, while he was absorbedly poring over a small account book that he kept locked carefully in his desk, he found her standing beside him.

"I'm afraid that I shall have to ask you to buy back mother's stock in the company," she said. That morning's mail had been unusually heavy in stock sale possibilities. "We have a sudden pressing need for that thousand dollars, and we'll just have to have it, that's all."

Wallingford's first impulse was to dissuade her from this idea, but another thought now came to him as he looked musingly into his roll-top desk; and as the girl, standing above him, gazed down upon his thick neck and puffy cheeks, he reminded her of nothing so much as a monstrous toad.

"Have you the stock certificate with you?" he inquired presently.

No, she had not.

"Well, bring it down to-night," he said, "and I'll give you a check for it. I'm going away on a little trip to-morrow, and I want you to get me up a statement out of the books, anyhow."

For an instant the girl hesitated with a sharp intake of breath. Then she said, "Very well," and went home.

That night, when she returned, she paused in the hall a moment to subdue her trepidation, then, whether foolish or not, but with such courage as men might envy, she boldly opened the door and stepped in. She found Wallingford at his desk, and she had walked up to him and laid at his elbow the stock certificate, properly released, before he turned his unusually flushed face toward her. In his red eyes she saw that he had been dining rather too well, even for him. She had been prepared for this, however, and her voice was quite steady as she asked:

"Have you the check made out, Mr. Wallingford?"

"There's no hurry about it," he replied a trifle thickly. "There's some work I want you to do first."

"I'd rather you would make out the check now," she insisted, "so that I won't forget it."

Laboriously he filled out the blank and signed it, and then blinkingly watched her smooth, white fingers as she folded it and snapped it into her purse. Suddenly he swung his great arm about her waist and drew her toward him. What followed was the surprise of his life, for a very sharp steel hatpin was jabbed into him in half a dozen indiscriminate places, and Minnie Bishop stood panting in the middle of the floor.

"I have endured it here for weeks now, longer than I believed it possible," she shrieked at him, crying hysterically, "because we could not afford to lose this money: stood it for days when the sight of you turned me sick! It seems a year ago, you ugly beast, that I made sure you were a thief, but I wouldn't leave till I knew it was the right time to ask you for this check!"

Dazed, he stood nursing his hurts. One of her strokes had been into his cheek, and as he took his reddened handkerchief away from it a flood of rage came over him and he took a step forward; but he had miscalculated her spirit.

"I wish I had killed you!" she cried, and darted out of the door.

For three days after that episode the man was confined to his room under the care of his wife, whom he told that he had been attacked by a footpad, "a half-crazy foreigner with a stiletto." For a week more he was out of town. A peremptory telegram from Clover brought him in from his stock-drumming transactions, and by the time he reached the city he was ready for any emergency, though finally attributing the call to the fact, which he had almost forgotten, that to-morrow was the first day of the three set apart for the Supreme Circle Conclave of the Noble Order of Friendly Hands.

He arrived at about eight o'clock in the evening, and as his automobile rolled past the big building where their offices were located, he glanced up and saw that lights were blazing brightly from the windows. Anxious to find out at once the true status of affairs he went up. He was surprised to find the big reception room full of hard-featured men who looked uncomfortable in their "best clothes," and among them he recognized two or three, from surrounding small towns, to whom he had sold stock. At first, as he opened the door, black looks were cast in his direction, and a couple of the men half arose from their seats; but they sat down again as Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford's face beamed with a cordial smile.

"Good evening, gentlemen," he observed cheerfully, with a special nod for those he remembered, and then he stalked calmly through the room.

The nights being cool now, Mr. Wallingford wore a fur-lined ulster of rich material and of a fit which made his huge bulk seem the perfection of elegance. Upon his feet were shining patent leather shoes; upon his head was a shining high hat. He carried one new glove in his gloved left hand; from his right hand gleamed the big diamond. His ulster hung open in front, displaying his sparkling scarf pin, his rich scarf of the latest pattern, his fancy waistcoat. He held his head high, and no man could stand before him nor against him. When the door had closed behind him they almost sighed in unison. There went money, sacred money, even the more so that some of it was their own!

In the inner office, Wallingford was surprised to find Minnie Bishop present and working earnestly upon the books. Looking up she met his darkening glance defiantly, but even if he had chosen to speak to her there was no time, for Clover had opened the door of his own private office and greeted him with a curt nod.

"Come in here," said Clover roughly. "I want to talk to you."

It was the inevitable moment, the one for which Wallingford had long been prepared.

"Certainly," he said with aggravating cheerfulness, and, walking in, let Clover close the door behind him. He sat comfortably in the big leather chair at the side of the desk and lit a cigar, while Clover plumped himself in his own swivel.

"Who are the Rubes outside?" asked Wallingford, puffing critically at his half-dollar perfecto.

"Neil's picked degree team," answered Clover shortly. "He had them meet up here to-night for some instructions, I believe, but he's not here yet. It's his affair entirely. I want to see you about something else."

"Blaze away," said Wallingford with great heartiness, carefully placing his silk hat upon a clean sheet of paper. He was still smiling cheerfully, but in his eyes had come the trace of a glitter.

"I'll blaze away all right, whether I have your invitation or not!" snapped Clover. "You've been giving me the double cross. For every share of stock you sold for the company you've sold five of your own and pocketed the money."

"Why shouldn't I?" inquired Mr. Wallingford calmly, his willingness to admit it so pleasantly amounting to insolence. "It was my stock, and the money I got for such of it as I sold was my money."

"Such of it as you sold!" repeated Clover indignantly. "I know how much you unloaded. You have placed somewhat over twenty thousand for the company – "

"And five thousand for you," Wallingford reminded him. "I suppose you went South with the proceeds. If you didn't you're crazy!"

Clover flushed a trifle.

"But you got rid of nearly sixty thousand dollars of your own stock," he charged bitterly. It still rankled in him that Wallingford had "handed the lemon" to him. Him! Monstrous that a man should be so dishonorable! "You played me for a mark. When you handed out my certificates you instructed every man to send them in for transfer, but when you peddled your own you said nothing about that, and only the few yaps who happened to know about such things sent them in. You're nearly all sold out, and I'm holding the bag."

"Right you are," admitted Wallingford, openly amused. "I have a few shares left in my desk, though, and I'll make you a present of them. I'm going out of the company, you know."

"You're not!" exclaimed Clover, smiting his fist upon his desk. "We were in this thing together, half and half, and I want my share!"

Wallingford laughed.

"I told you once," he informed his irate partner, "that I never give up any money. My action is strictly legal. Now, don't choke!" he added as he saw Clover about to make another objection. "You've not a gasp coming. When I took hold here you were practically on your last legs. You have had a salary of one hundred dollars a week since that time. In addition to that I have handed you five thousand dollars, and you have nearly sixty thousand dollars' worth of stock left. You can do just what I have been doing: sell your stock and get out. As for me I am out, and that's all there is to it! I have all I want and I'm going to quit!"

The door had opened and Neil stood on the threshold.

"You bet you're going to quit!" said Neil. His face was pale but his eyes were blazing and his fists were clenched. "You're both going to quit, but not the way you think you are! Come out here. Some of my friends are in the waiting room, and they want to see you right away!"

Clover had turned a sickly, ashen white, but Wallingford rose to his feet.

"You tell them to go plumb to Hell!" he snarled.

His eyes were widened until they showed the whites. He was fully as much cowed by the suggestion as Clover, but he would "put up a front" to the last.

"Come in, boys!" commanded Neil loudly.

They came with alacrity. They crowded into the small room, packing it so snugly that Neil and Wallingford and Clover, forced into the little space before Clover's desk, stood touching.

"What does this mean?" demanded Wallingford, glaring at the invaders.

He stood almost head and shoulders above them, and where he met a man's eyes those eyes dropped. Some of them who had not removed their hats hastily did so. His lordliness was still potent.

"You can't bluff me!" shrieked Neil, who, standing beside him, shook his fist in Wallingford's face. The contrast between the sizes of the two men would have been ludicrous, had it not been for Neil's intensity, which seemed to expand him, to make him and his passionate purpose colossal. "I know you, and these men don't!" he went on, his neck chords swelling with anger. "Why, think of it, gentlemen, in the four months that he has been here, this man has taken sixty thousand dollars from the hard-working members of this Order, has stuffed it in his pocket and is making ready to leave! The little girl out there, who is getting us up a statement for to-morrow, figured him out for the dog he is while I was still groping for the facts. He tried to take her for a fool, but she – she – " His voice broke and he smacked his fist in his palm to loosen his tongue. "You're a smart man, Mr. Wallingford, but you made a few mistakes. One of them was in sending me on the road so you could – so you – " again his voice broke and he sank his nails into his palms for control. "You thought this meeting was a mere jolly for our members, didn't you? It's not. These men are here solely as representatives of the business interests of their friends. We're going to put this Order back upon a sound basis, and the first thing we're going to do is to cut out graft. Why, you unclean whelp, you have spent over fourteen thousand dollars in the four months you have been here, and you have – or had, up to a week ago – forty-five thousand dollars in the Second National – all of poor men's money! How do I know? You lost your bank book which had just been balanced. As for you, Clover, you're a clog upon the business, too!" Clover had brought this upon himself by darting at Wallingford a glance of hate, which Neil caught. "Now this is what you're going to do, James Clover. For having fathered the Order you're to be allowed to keep the five thousand dollars you got for the sale of stock. Your remaining stock you're going to transfer over to our treasury, and then you're going to step down and out. As for you, Mr. J. Rufus Wallingford, you're going to write a check for forty-five thousand dollars, payable to the company."

"What you are asking of me is unjust – and absurd," whined Wallingford.

"Write that check!" Neil almost screamed. "We know you're slick enough to keep your tricks within legal bounds, and that's why these men are here."

The brow of Wallingford contracted and he tried to look angry, but his breath was coming short and there was a curious pallor around the edge of his lips and around his eyes.

"This is coercion!" he charged with dry mouth.

"Put it that way if you want to," agreed Neil hotly.

"We'll break your infernal neck, that's what we'll do!" put in a spokesman back toward the door, and there was a general pressing forward. Neil had lashed them into fury, and one rawboned fellow, a blacksmith, wedged through them with purple face and upraised fist. So heavily that he knocked the breath out of Clover with his chair back, Wallingford plumped down at the desk and whipped out his check book.

"I ask one thing of you," he said, as he picked up the pen with a curious trembling grimace that was almost like a smile, but was not. "You must leave me at least a thousand dollars to get away from here."

There was a moment of silence.

"That's reasonable," granted Neil, after careful consideration. "Give us the check for forty-four thousand."

Wallingford wrote it and then he put it in his pocket.

"I have the check ready, gentlemen," he announced, "but I'll give it to you at the entrance of my home – to a committee consisting of Neil and any two others you may select. If I hand it to you before I pass out at that door, some of you are liable to – to lose your heads."

He was positively craven in appearance when he said this, and with an expression of contempt Neil agreed to it. Wallingford's car was still waiting on the street below, and into it piled the four. Before the rich building where J. Rufus had his apartments, Neil and one of the other men got out first; but if they had anticipated any attempt at escape on Wallingford's part they were mistaken. Without a word he handed the check to Neil and waited while they inspected it to see that it was correctly drawn and signed.

"Now, Mr. Slippery Eel," said Neil exultantly as he put the check in his pocket, "it won't do any good to try to stop this check, for if I can't draw it you can't. I shall be there in the morning when the bank opens. I secured an injunction this afternoon that will tie up your account," and his voice swelled with triumph.

Wallingford laughed. With his hand upon the knob he held the vestibule door open, and he felt safe from violence, which was all he feared.

"Well," said he philosophically, "I see I'm beaten, and there's no use crying over spilled milk."

Neil looked after him dubiously, as he swaggered into the hall.

"I didn't expect it would be so easy," he said to the men. "I knew the fellow was a physical coward, but I didn't know he was such a big one. My lawyer told me he could even beat us on that injunction."

Mr. Wallingford did not go directly to his apartments. He went into the booth downstairs, instead, and telephoned his wife. Then he went out. He was gone for about half an hour, and, when he came back, Mrs. Wallingford, wastefully leaving a number of expensive accumulations that were too big to be carried as hand luggage, and abandoning the rich furniture to be claimed by the deluded dealers, had four suit cases packed.

CHAPTER XII
FATE ARRANGES FOR J. RUFUS AN OPPORTUNITY TO MANUFACTURE SALES RECORDERS

It was not until their train had passed beyond the last suburb that Wallingford, ensconced in the sleeper drawing room, was able to resume his accustomed cheerfulness.

"Sure you have that bundle of American passports all right, Fanny?" he inquired.

"They're perfectly safe, but I'm glad to be rid of them," she answered listlessly, and opening her hand bag she emptied it of its contents, then, with a small penknife, loosened the false bottom in it. From underneath this she drew a flat package of thousand-dollar bills and handed them to him.

"Forty of them!" gloated Wallingford, counting them over. Then he pounded upon his knees and laughed. "I can see Starvation Neil when he has to tell his jay delegates that I drew out every cent the day after I lost my bank book. I'd been missing too many things that never turned up again. I fixed them to-night, too. Although I didn't need to do it to be on the law's safe side, I hustled out before we started and swore to a notary that I signed that check under coercion; and they'll get that affidavit before the check and the injunction!"

Mrs. Wallingford did not join him in the shoulder-heaving laugh which followed.

"I don't like it, Jim," she urged. "You're growing worse all the time, and some day you'll overstep the bounds. And have you noticed another thing? Our money never does us any good."

"You'll wake up when we get settled down some place to enjoy ourselves. I don't believe you know how well you like fine dresses and diamonds, and to live on the fat of the land. You know what this little bundle of comfort means? That we're the salt of the earth while it lasts; that for a solid year we may have not only all the luxuries in the world, but everybody we meet will try to make life pleasant for us."

To that end Wallingford secured a suite of rooms at two hundred dollars per week the moment they landed in New York, and began to live at a corresponding rate. He gave himself no regret for yesterday and no care for to-morrow, but let each extravagant moment take care of itself. It was such intervals as this, between her husband's more than doubtful "business" operations, that reconciled Mrs. Wallingford to their mode of life, or, rather, that numbed the moral sensibilities which lie dormant in every woman. While they were merely spending money she was content to play the grande dame, to dress herself in exquisite toilettes and bedeck herself with brilliant gems, to go among other birds of fine feathers that congregated at the more exclusive public places, though she made no friends among them, to be surrounded by every luxury that money could purchase, to have her every whim gratified by the mere pressing of a button. As for Wallingford, to be a prince of spenders, to find new and gaudy methods of display, to have people turn as he passed by and ask who he might be; these things made existence worth while.

Only one thing – his restless spirit – kept him from pursuing this uneventful path until all of his forty thousand dollars was gone. After two months of slothful ease, something more exciting became imperative, and just then the racing season began and supplied that need. Every afternoon they drove out to the track, and there Wallingford bet thousands as another man might bet fives. There could be but one end to this, but he did not care. What did it matter whether he spent his money a trifle more or less quickly? There was plenty of it within his broad hunting grounds, and when what he had was gone he had only to go capture more; so it was no shock one morning to count over his resources and find that he had but a fragment left of what he had laughingly termed his "insurance fund." Upon that same morning an urgent telegram was delivered to him from "Blackie" Daw. He read it with a whistle of surprise and passed it over to his wife without comment.

"You're not going?" she asked with much concern, passing the message back to him.

"Of course I am," he promptly told her. "Blackie's the only man I could depend upon to get me out of a similar scrape."

"But, Jim," she protested; "you just now said that you have barely over six thousand left."

"That's all right," he assured her. "I'd have to get out and hustle in less than a month anyhow, at the rate we're going. I'll just take Blackie's five thousand, and a couple of hundred over for expenses. You keep the balance of the money and we'll get out of these apartments at once. I'll get you nice accommodations at about twenty a week, and before I come back I'll have something stirred up."

Secretly, he was rather pleased with the turn affairs had taken. Inaction was beginning to pall upon him, and this message that called urgently upon him to take an immediate trip out of town was entirely to his liking. Within an hour he had transferred his wife into comfortable quarters and was on his way to the train. He had very little margin of time, but, slight as it was, the grinning Fate which presided over his destinies had opportunity to arrange a meeting for him. Even as he pointed out his luggage to a running porter, a fussy little German in very new-looking clothes which fitted almost like tailor-made, had rushed back to the gates of the train shed where the conductor stood with his eyes fixed intently on his watch, his left hand poised ready to raise.

"I left my umbrella," spluttered the passenger.

"No time," declared the autocrat, not gruffly or unkindly, but in a tone of virtuous devotion to duty.

The little German's eyes glared through his spectacles, his face puffed red, his gray mustache bristled.

"But it's my wife's umbrella!" he urged, as if that might make a difference.

The brass-buttoned slave to duty did not even smile. He raised his hand, and in a moment more the potent wave of his wrist would have sent Number Eighteen plunging on her westward way. In that moment, however, the Pullman conductor, waiting with him, clutched the blue arm of authority.

"Hold her a second," he advised, and with his thumb pointed far up the platform. "Here comes from a dollar up for everybody. He's rode with me before."

The captain of Eighteen gave a swift glance and was satisfied.

"Sure. I know him," he said of the newcomer; then he turned to the still desperately hopeful passenger and relented. "Run!" he directed briefly.

Wallingford, who had secured for Carl Klug this boon, merely by an opportune arrival, was not hurrying. He was too large a man to hurry, so a depot porter was doing it for him. The porter plunged on in advance, springing heavily from one bent leg to the other, weighted down with a hat box in one hand, a huge Gladstone bag in the other and a suit case under each arm. The perspiration was streaming down his face, but he was quite content. Behind him stalked J. Rufus, carrying only a cane and gloves; but more, for him, would have seemed absurd, for when he moved the background seemed to advance with him, he was so broad of shoulder and of chest and of girth. Dignity radiated from his frame and carriage, good humor from his big face, wealth from every line and crease of his garments; and it was no matter for wonder that even the rigid schedule of Number Eighteen was glad to extend to this master of circumstances its small fraction of elasticity.

One of the Pullman porters from up the train caught a glimpse of his approach and came running back to snatch up two of the pieces of luggage. It did not matter to him whether the impressive gentleman was riding in his coach or not; he was anxious to help on mere general principles, and was even more so when the depot porter, dropping the luggage inside the gate, broke into glorious sunrise over the crinkling green certificate of merit that was handed him. The Pullman conductor only asked to what city the man was bound, then he too snatched up a suit case and a bag and raced with the porter to take them on board, calling out as he ran the car into which the luggage must go. To Wallingford their activity gave profound satisfaction, and he paused to hand the conductor a counterpart to the huge black cigar he was then smoking. It had no band of any sort upon it, but the conductor judged the cigar by the man. It was not less than three for a dollar, he was sure.

"Pretty close figuring, old man," observed Wallingford cordially.

The conductor's smile, while gracious enough, was only fleeting, for this thing of being responsible for Eighteen was an anxious business, the gravity of which the traveling public should be taught to appreciate more.

"We're nearly a minute off now," he said, "and I've let myself in to wait for a Dutchman I let run out when I saw you coming. There he is. Third car up for you, sir," and he ran up to the steps of the second car himself.

The missing passenger came tearing through the gates just as Wallingford went up the car steps. The conductor held his hand aloft, and the engineer, looking back, impatiently clanged his bell. The porter picked up his stepping-box and jumped on after his tip, but he looked out to watch the little German racing with all his might up the platform, and did not withdraw his head until the belated one, all legs and arms, scrambled upon the train. Instantly the wheels began to revolve, both vestibule doors were closed with a slam, and a moment later Carl Klug, puffing and panting, dropped upon a seat in the smoking compartment, opposite to the calm J. Rufus Wallingford, without breath – and without his umbrella.

"Schrecklich!" he exploded when he could talk. "They are all thieves here. I leave my umbrella in the waiting-room five minutes, I go back and it is gone. Gone! And it was my wife's umbrella!"

Under ordinary circumstances Mr. Klug, whose thirty years of residence in America had not altogether destroyed certain old-country notions of caste, would not have ventured to address this lordly-looking stranger, but at present he was angry and simply must open the vials of his wrath to some one. He met with no repulse. Mr. Wallingford was not one to repulse strangers of even modest competence. He only laughed. A score of jovial wrinkles sprang about his half-closed eyes, and his pink face grew pinker.

"Right you are," he agreed. "When I'm in this town I keep everything I've got right in front of me, and if I want to look the other way I edge around on the other side of my grips."

Mr. Klug digested this idea for a moment, and then he, too, laughed, though not with the abandon of Mr. Wallingford. He could not so soon forget his wife's umbrella.

"It is so," he admitted. "I have been here three days, and every man I had any business with ought to be in jail!"

A sudden thought as he came to this last word made Mr. Klug lay almost shrieking emphasis upon it, and smack both fists upon his knees. He craned his head forward, his eyes glared through his spectacles, his cheeks puffed out and his mustache bristled. Wallingford surveyed him with careful appraisement. The clothing was ready made, but it was a very good quality of its kind. The man's face was an intelligent one and told of careful, concentrated effort. His hands were lean and rough, the fingers were supple and the outer joints bent back, particularly those of the thumb, which described almost a half circle. The insides of the fingers were seamed and crossed with countless little black lines. From all this the man was a mechanic, and a skilled one. Those fingers dealt deftly with small parts, and years of grimy oil had blackened those innumerable cuts and scratches.

"Did they sting you?" Wallingford inquired with a dawning interest that was more than courteous sympathy.

"I guess not!" snapped Mr. Klug triumphantly, and the other made quick note of the fact that the man was familiar with current slang. "I was too smart for them." Then, after a reflective pause, he added: "Maybe. They might steal my patent some way."

Patent! Mr. Wallingford's small, thick ears suddenly twitched forward.

"Been trying to sell one?" he asked, pausing with his cigar half way to his mouth and waiting for the answer.

"Three hundred dollars they offer me!" exploded Mr. Klug, again smiting both fists on his knees. "Six years I worked on it in my little shop of nights to get up a machine that was different from all the rest and that would work right, and when I get it done and get my patent and take it to them, they already had a copy of my patent and showed it to me. They bought it from the Government for five cents, and called me the same as a thief and offered me three hundred dollars!"