“Just one minute, Henderson!” Bowen lifted his hand. “I’ve got a terrible temper. It doesn’t work very hard, not every day; but to hear names and epithets applied to honest women is something that sets it on a hair-trigger. Now, if I were you, Henderson, I’d just speak names and leave out the adjectives. Do you get me? Get me right off the jump?” Henderson swallowed hard. It was plain to see that he was seething internally. But he knew men; that was his business. He looked into Bowen’s gray eyes, and controlled himself. “What do you want?” he said slowly, his voice low and tense. “What are you driving at? Trying to force a bigger price for that stock out of me?” “Nope,” returned Bowen cheerfully. “But it isn’t nice for a big man like you to come in here and try to threaten and browbeat a girl into giving away all she’s got in the world. It’s going to get you badly beaten up one of these days. However, now that you’re dealing with me you might prove reasonable. How much will you give for that Apex Crown?” “Thirty,” growled Henderson. “Buyin’ for Dickover or yourself?” asked Bowen softly. The agent uttered a lurid curse. Bowen rose and kicked away his chair, and opened the door. “I thought so,” he remarked cheerfully. “Well, I guess that check’s cashed, so I’ll mosey along. You needn’t wait here for Miss Ferguson; she won’t be back for quite a spell. And don’t come down in my elevator; wait till I’m out of the way. And say—when you do come, shut the door after you, will you? So-long.” Bowen closed the door softly and strode off to the elevator. On the way down, he glanced at his watch. It was nine fifty. “Lots of time,” he thought. “I’ll see Dickover, then meet the little lady.” At two minutes before the hour he inquired at the desk for Dickover, and was sent up to the latter’s suite. He found Dickover declaiming to a private secretary, who admitted him and then retired discreetly. Bob Bowen dropped into a chair beside Dickover’s table and accepted the cigar shoved at him. “I like your cigars,” he observed pleasantly. “The flavor is a little strong for my taste, but it’s real tobacco. And then the label is pretty. Don’t know when I’ve ever seen a prettier one—” “Confound you!” snapped the fat man. “What d’ you know?” “Well, I’m thirty years old, pretty near, and you’d be surprised to find how much I’ve learned in the last decade of that time! Experience is—” “Damn your experience!” exploded Dickover. “Do you know who’s buying Apex Crown?” “Of course. Don’t you?” For answer, Dickover seized a check from the table and held it out. It was for five hundred dollars. “Thanks.” Bowen stuffed it carelessly into his pocket. “Since seeing you this morning I’ve become fairly rich, and this will add a trifle to the pile. Your agent, Henderson, is the man after Apex Crown. Just offered thirty for the stock I hold.”