In a dark corner of the disordered room sat the child, Eileen, a white, shadowy elf of six, reading in the Book of Common Prayer. Sprowl entered the room; Munn looked up, then coolly continued to rummage. Sprowl first addressed himself to the child, in a heavy, patronizing voice: "It's too dark to read there in that corner, young one. Take your book out into the hall." "I can see better to read in the dark," said the child, lifting her great, dark-blue eyes. "Go out into the hall," said Sprowl, sharply. The child shrank back, and went, taking her little jacket in one hand, her battered travelling-satchel in the other. If the two men could have known that the steel box was in that satchel this story might never have been told. But it never entered their heads that the pallid little waif had sense enough to conceal a button to her own profit. "Munn," said Sprowl, lighting a cigar, "what is there in this business?" "I'll tell you when I'm done," observed Munn, coolly. Sprowl sat down on the bed where O'Hara had died, cocked the cigar up in his mouth, and blew smoke, musingly, at the ceiling. Munn found nothing--not a scrap of paper, not a line. This staggered him, but he did not intend that Sprowl should know it. "Found what you want?" asked Sprowl, comfortably. "Yes," replied Munn. "Belong to the kid?" "Yes; I'm her guardian." The men measured each other in silence for a minute. "What will you take to keep quiet?" asked Sprowl. "I'll give you a thousand dollars." "I want five thousand," said Munn, firmly. "I'll double it for the papers," said Sprowl. Munn waited. "There's not a paper left," he said; "O'Hara made me burn 'em." "Twenty thousand for the papers," said Sprowl, calmly. "My God, Mr. Sprowl!" growled Munn, white and sweating with anguish. "I'd give them to you for half that if I had them. Can't you believe me? I saw O'Hara burn them." "What were you rummaging for, then?" demanded Sprowl. "For anything--to get a hold on you," said Munn, sullenly. "Blackmail?" Munn was silent. "Oh," said Sprowl, lazily. "I think I'll be going, then--" Munn barred his exit, choking with anger. "You give me five thousand dollars, or I'll stir 'em up to look into your titles!" he snarled. Sprowl regarded him with contempt; then another idea struck him, an idea that turned his fat face first to ashes, then to fire. A month later Sprowl returned to the Sagamore Club, triumphant, good-humored, and exceedingly contented. But he had, he explained, only succeeded in saving the club at the cost of the entire emergency fund--one hundred thousand dollars--which, after all, was a drop in the bucket to the remaining fourteen members. The victory would have been complete if Sprowl had also been able to purchase the square mile of land lately occupied by O'Hara. But this belonged to O'Hara's daughter, and the child flatly refused to part with it.