"But I have understood that you do not wish to resign. Let us be magnanimous, Mr. Ford, and agree to hang this matter up until this supposed crisis is past." "No," was the curt reply. "I have changed my mind. I don't think I want to work for you any longer, Mr. Colbrith." "Not if I withdrew my--ah--objections?" "No." Silence again. The packed lobby of the hotel had overflowed upon the plank sidewalk, and the din of the buyers and sellers rose like the noise of a frantic street fight. Ford's half jesting remark about the possibility of the microbe finding its way into the blood of the president was not so pointless as the old man's retort sought to make it appear. It was the wheat pit which had given Mr. Colbrith his first half-million; and as he listened to the hoarse cries, the thing which he hoped was safely caution-killed began to stir within him. Suddenly he picked a word of two out of the sidewalk clamor that made him turn swiftly upon the silent young man. "They are selling 'Little Alicia'--your stock--down there!" he gasped. "Have you--have you--" "No; I haven't put mine on the market. It's some of my partner's, Grigsby's, stock. I suppose he couldn't stand the push." Once more the president listened. Only an ex-wrestler in the wheat pit could have picked intelligence out of the Babel of puts and calls. "It's up to a hundred and fifty!" he exploded. "What did you pay for your shares, Mr. Ford?" "Twenty," said Ford coolly. "Good Heavens! I--I hope you hold a safe majority?" "No; we broke even, Grigsby and I. I have fifty per cent." The president groaned. "I--I'll excuse you, Mr. Ford. Get down there at once and buy that other necessary share!" Ford shook his head with predetermined gloom. "No, Mr. Colbrith, I'm not buying any more mining stock. What I did buy seems to have cost me my job." "But, my dear young man! This is a crisis. You are likely to lose control of your property! Or, at least, it is soaring to a point at which you will never be able to secure the control." Ford came up smiling. "You forget that this is mere mad excitement, Mr. Colbrith," he said, handing back the President's own phrase. "To-morrow, I dare say, I shall be able to buy at twenty again." The president came away from the window and sat down. His face was twitching and the thin white hands were tremulous. "There may be more in this gold discovery than I have been willing to admit," he said abstractedly, "and in that case ... Mr. Ford, upon what terms will you consent to go on and whip this line of ours into shape?" Ford came out of the fog of discouragement with a bound. "A complete change in the management of the Pacific Southwestern, Mr. Colbrith. North and his grafters must go." The President did not fly into wrathful shards, as Ford fully expected. On the contrary, he was fingering the white goat's-beard with one nervous hand, and apparently listening half-absently to the clamor in the street.