Wilson was busy at his desk looking over bills of lading, receipts, and other papers, and now and then giving instructions to a typewriter in the corner of the room. “Ahl how are you, Miller?” he said, indifferently, giving the caller his hand without rising. “Down to see the city again, eh?” Rayburn leaned on the top of the desk, and knocked the ashes from his cigar with the tip of his little finger. “Partly that and partly business,” he returned, carelessly. “Two birds, eh?” “That's about it. I concluded you were not coming up our way soon, and so I decided to drop in on you.” “Yes, glad you did.” Wilson glanced at the papers on his desk and frowned. “Wish I had more time at my disposal. I'd run up to the club with you and show you my Kentucky thoroughbreds, but I realty am rushed, to-day particularly.” “Oh, I haven't a bit of time to spare myself! I take the afternoon train home. The truth is, I came to see you for my clients, the Bishops.” “Ah, I see.” Wilson's face clouded over by some mechanical arrangement known only to himself. “Well, I can' t realty report any progress in that matter,” he said. “All the company think Bishop's figures are away out of reason, and the truth is, right now, we are over head and ears in operations in other quarters, and--well, you see how it is?” “Yes, I think I do.” Miller smoked a moment. “In fact, I told my clients last month that the matter was not absorbing your attention, and so they gave up counting on you.” Wilson so far forgot his pose that he looked up in a startled sort of way and began to study Miller's smoke-wrapped profile. “You say they are not--have not been counting on my company to--to buy their land?” “Why, no,” said Miller, in accents well resembling those of slow and genuine surprise. “Why, you have not shown the slightest interest in the matter since the day you made the loan, and naturally they ceased to think you wanted the land. The only reason I called was that the note is payable to-day, and--” “Oh yes, by Jove! that was careless of me. The interest is due. I knew it would be all right, and I had no idea you would bother to run down for that. Why, my boy, we could have drawn for it, you know.” Miller smiled inwardly, as he looked calmly and fixedly through his smoke into the unsuspecting visage upturned to him. “But the note itself is payable to-day,” he said, closely on the alert for a facial collapse; “and, while you or I might take up a paper for twenty-five thousand dollars through a bank, old-fashioned people like Mr. and Mrs. Bishop would feel safer to have it done by an agent. That's why I came.” Miller, in silent satisfaction, saw the face of his antagonist fall to pieces like an artificial flower suddenly shattered. “Pay the note?” gasped Wilson. “Why--” Miller puffed at his cigar and gazed at his victim as if slightly surprised over the assumption that his clients had not, all along, intended to avail themselves of that condition in their contract.