The room began filling up with the various customers and loungers common to such offices: the debonair gentleman in check trousers and silk hat, with a rose in his button-hole, who dusts his trousers broadside with his cane--short of one hundred shares with thirty per cent. margin; the shabby old man with a solemn face who watches the ticker a moment and then wanders aimlessly out, looking more like an underpaid clerk in a law office than the president of a crosstown railroad--long of one thousand shares with no margin at all; the nervous man who stops the messenger boys and devours the sales' lists before they can be skewered on the files,--not a dollar's interest either way; and, last of all, the brokers with little pads and nimble pencils. [Illustration] The news that the great English syndicate was looking into the C. & W. A. L R. R. was soon around the office, and each _habitue_ had a bright word for the colonel, congratulating him on the favorable turn his affairs had taken. All but old Klutchem, a broker in unlisted securities, who had been trying for weeks to get a Denver land scheme before the same syndicate, and had failed. "Garden Spot bonds! Bosh! Road begins nowhere and ends nowhere. If any set of fools built it, the only freight it would get, outside of peanuts and sweet potatoes, would be razor-back hogs and niggers. I wouldn't give a yellow dog for enough of those securities to paper a church." The colonel was on his feet in an instant. "Mr. Klutchem, I cannot permit you, suh, to use such language in my presence unrebuked; you"-- "Now, see here, old Garden Spot, you know"-- The familiarity angered the colonel even more than the outburst. "Caarter, suh,--George Fairfax Caarter," said the colonel with dignity. "Well, Caarter, then," mimicking him, perhaps unconsciously. "You know"-- The intonation was the last straw. The colonel lost all control of himself. No man had ever thus dared before. "Stop, Mr. Klutchem! What I know, suh, I decline to discuss with you. Yo' statements are false, and yo' manner of expressin' them quite in keepin' with the evident vulga'ity of yo' mind. If I can ascertain that you have ever had any claim to be considered a gentleman you will hear from me ag'in. If not, I shall rate you as rankin' with yo' yallar dog; and if you ever speak to me ag'in I will strike you, suh, with my cane." And the colonel, his eyes flashing, strode into the private office with the air of a field marshal, and shut the door. Klutchem looked around the room and into the startled faces of the clerks and bystanders, burst into a loud laugh, and left the office. On reaching the street he met Fitz coming in. "Better look after old Garden Spot, Fitzpatrick. I poked holes in his road, and he wanted to swallow me alive." CHAPTER VI _Certain Important Letters_