Now Jerry, alive and looking on at me from somewhere in New York, naturally would start with that thought for me. He’d be feeling, from the first moment I’d stuck with him after he was accused and when I continued to stick through that affair of the Scofields’, how I’d had a steady run of results against me. He’d have heard how, out of that Flamingo Feather ball, I’d gone deeper into disrepute; and he’d been thinking just that for me: “Here’s your chance, Steve.” He meant, of course, my chance to rehabilitate my reputation somewhat. “Get to T. M. Teverson at once!” That meant to get to the big man of the moment in New York. Officially, he was first vice-president of the Sencort Trust; but unofficially he was a sort of financial vice-regent of Europe for the time being. You see, that was the instant of the particular crisis in international affairs when the Sencort Trust took the load, and “carried” two of the major powers, along with seven or eight of the minors, for the sake of the peace of the world and to postpone, for a while anyway, the rush of the Fourth Horseman of the Apocalypse over the rest of Europe. Teverson personally was packing tremendous responsibilities; and naturally every one, whose impulse in difficulty is to slip out from under and loot and destroy, was keen to take a pot shot at him. Jerry’s note must mean that he’d run on the trail of an especially capable plot which involved the employment of pipes running into the directors’ room at the Sencort Trust. Suggestive, that mention of pipes; and he had emphasized the need to see Teverson at once. I had the note just after breakfast; and the _Times_ this morning told that Lord Strathon, for England, and F. L. Géroud, for France, were arriving on the _Majestic_ for immediate conference with the Sencort committee about loans and reparations. That meeting, this morning, undoubtedly was booked for the directors’ room at the Sencort Trust,--a big bag, sure enough, for whoever was going gunning through the pipes this morning. I’d no time to lose, so I rushed to Wall Street and up in the old Trust Building to Teverson’s office. He was down meeting the _Majestic_, which was just docking; so I sent in my card to Sencort. Now I knew the old man slightly; he had, among a thousand other flyers, his venture in beans, netting himself something too. Also, Fanneal and Company had supplied on some foreign-food contracts he’d financed; so I was sure he’d know my name. He did; he sent out word he couldn’t see me and told the girl to explain that he was expecting Lord Strathon and M. Géroud momentarily. “Tell him that’s why I have to see him now,” I urged the girl. She brought out word that the Sencort Trust would not let the contracts on the supplies to be bought with proceeds of the new loans; and, if they did, I’d have to see him later. I said to that girl, “You read the papers?”