“Go to it, my laddy buck,” Regan conceded, then, with a wave of suspicion, “—I’ll get him for you myself.” And, having ascertained that Bascom was really at the other end of the line, he turned the receiver over to Francis. “You were right,” the latter assured Bascom. “Regan’s all you said and worse. Go right on with your plan of campaign. We’ve got him where we want him, though the old fox won’t believe it for a moment. He thinks he’s going to strip me, clean me out.” Francis paused to think up the strongest way of carrying on his bluff, then continued. “I’ll tell you something you don’t know. He’s the one who manœuvred the raid from the beginning. So now you know who we’re going to bury.” And, after a little more of similar talk, he hung up. “You see,” he explained, again from the door, “you were so crafty that we couldn’t make out who it was. Why hell, Regan, we were prepared to give a walloping to some unknown that had several times your strength. And now that it’s you, it’s easy. We were prepared to strain. But with you it will be a walk-over. To-morrow, around this time, there’s going to be a funeral right here in your office and you’re not going to be one of the mourners. You’re going to be the corpse——and a not-nice looking financial corpse you’ll be when we get done with you.” “The dead spit of R.H.M.,” the Wolf grinned. “Lord, how he could pull off a bluff!” “It’s a pity he didn’t bury you and save me all the trouble,” was Francis’ parting shot. “And all the expense,” Regan flung after him. “It’s going to be pretty expensive for you, and there isn’t going to be any funeral from this place.” * * * * * “Well, to-morrow’s the day,” Francis delivered to Bascom, as they parted that evening. “This time to-morrow I’ll be a perfectly nice scalped and skinned and sun-dried and smoke-cured specimen for Regan’s private collection. But who’d have believed the old skunk had it in for me! I never harmed him. On the contrary, I always considered him father’s best friend.——If Charley Tippery could only come through with some of the Tippery surplus coin....” “Or if the United States would only declare a moratorium,” Bascom hoped equally hopelessly. And Regan, at that moment, was saying to his assembled agents and rumor-factory specialists: “Sell! Sell! Sell all you’ve got and then sell short. I see no bottom to this market!” And Francis, on his way up town, buying the last extra, scanned the five-inch-lettered headline: “I SEE NO BOTTOM TO THIS MARKET.—THOMAS REGAN.”