"Who's talking about insurance?" demanded Wallingford. "I'm talking about how to get money. Put up the little red dope-book. Clover, you get busy right away and write a lot of circus literature about the grand work your members will be doing for the widows and orphans by buying this stock; also how much dividend it will pay them. When the treasury stock is sold, and we have a big enough organization to absorb it, we will begin to unload our own shares and get out. If you clean up your sixty-four thousand dollars in this year, I guess you will be willing to let the stockholders elect new officers and conduct their own Friendly Hands Trust Company any way they please, won't you?" Mr. Clover quietly folded Mr. Wallingford's note and put it in his pocket. "Let's go out and rent some new offices," he said. He came back, at Mr. Neil's call, to write out that fifty-dollar check, and incidentally made out one for himself in a like amount. "What do you think of him, anyhow?" asked Neil with a troubled countenance. "Think of him?" repeated Clover with enthusiasm. "He's the greatest ever! If I had known him five years ago I'd be worth a million to-day!" "But is this scheme on the level?" asked Neil. "That's the beauty of it," said Clover, exulting like a schoolboy. "The law can't touch us any place." "Maybe not," admitted Neil; "but somehow I don't quite like it." "I guess you'll like your fifty a week when it begins to come in, and your fifteen thousand when we clean up," retorted Clover. "You bet!" said Neil, but he began to do some bewildered figuring on his own account. His head was in a whirl. CHAPTER X AN AMAZING COMBINATION OF PHILANTHROPY AND PROFIT IS INAUGURATED Minnie Bishop came to work for the Noble Order of Friendly Hands on the day that they moved into offices more in keeping with the magnificence of Mr. Wallingford, and she was by no means out of place amid the mahogany desks and fine rugs and huge leather chairs. "Her smile alone is worth fifty dollars a week to the business," Clover admitted, but they only paid her five at the start. She had more to recommend her, however, than white teeth and red lips. Wallingford himself was surprised to find that, in spite of her apparently frivolous bent, she had considerable ability and was quick to learn. From the first he assumed a direct guardianship over her, and his approaches toward a slightly more than paternal friendship she considered great fun. At home she mimicked him, and when her older sister tried to talk to her seriously about it she only laughed the more. Clover she amused continually, but Neil fell desperately in love with her from the start, and him she flouted most unmercifully. Really, she liked him, although she would not admit it even to herself, charging him with the fatal error of being "too serious."