"No; thank you; I do not care to go," answered John. "Ah, he is not so easy as I thought," said Monroe to himself. Silence followed. John sat still, masticating his tooth-pick, being little concerned as to how they took his answer. He wanted to be curt to them, by demeanor; and wished they would depart. For reasons of his own, which he considered private, as far as he was concerned, he did not desire their company under any circumstances. Therefore, while he aimed always to be polite to the triumvirate schemers, he would rather show himself to be a boor than to have them about him. So, disgusted with John's susceptibility to fall into their trap, and displeased at their own lack of tact, the three gentlemen went rattling down the stairs, and out into the street. "He's a Sunday-schooler, all right," said Welty, as they lined up side by side, with Monroe in between, to go down the avenue. "Aw, a cheap skate," said Bate. After Monroe began to realize the abject failure of his scheme, and after the words of the other gentlemen had percolated through his adamantine head, he remarked, in reply to each of the other's opinion, that Winthrope was a sissy, which application, it is readily seen, was not well placed; then he said: "He is an impeccable good-for-nothing. He needs to be shown a thing or two in this old town--but he will learn all right, like the rest of them." "You are a poor inveigler," said Welty to Monroe, facetiously. "My time, like that of all dogs, will come yet," said Monroe. "Well; I would like to know your motive?" asked Welty. "Oh, I just wanted to get him limbered up a little," answered the astute one. Thus being vanquished in his purpose, Monroe excused himself, after they had walked a few blocks, and retreated to his rooms, there to enter upon the duties of outlining a more ingenious campaign toward the destruction of John Winthrope's name, and to ruin his chances for continuing in the office of Jarney & Lowman. His first conceived plan was to get John Winthrope out of the way, in the head office. This he could only hope to do by besmirching his character, or cause him to commit some overt act of deportment that would be laid up against him in the eyes of Mr. Jarney. So, after being rebuffed in his first effort, Monroe concluded to take another tack, and would thereafter become and be John's intimate friend, a good fellow towards him, and a hearty supporter of him before the firm, and thereby get results. These things he thought out pretty clearly, and definitely decided that on the morrow he would bombard the fort from another angle.