He had become worldly with the confidence of succeeding. Whatever compunctions he had formerly felt about a marriage with Doris he had dismissed as pure sentimentality. There remained only a certain pride, a desire to know his worth by some master stroke. In this fierce need, he had lost moderation and caution. With the steady decline of Pittsburgh & New Orleans, his appetite had increased. It was no longer a fair profit he wanted, but something miraculous. He had sold hundreds of shares, placing always a limit, vowing to be satisfied, and always going beyond it. He had plunged first to the amount of thirty odd thousand, reserving the fifty thousand which was pledged to the pool, but which he had not been called on to deliver. But this fifty thousand remained a horrible ever-present temptation. He resisted at first, borrowing five thousand from Marsh when the rage of selling drove him deeper in; then finally, absolutely confident, he had yielded, without much shock to his conscience, and drawn each day until on this morning he had drawn on the last ten thousand as collateral. And still Pittsburgh & New Orleans receded, heaping up before his mind fantastic profits. "When asked, 'Don't you tire,' He said, 'Di diddledee dire-- I never can get enough work.'" finished Fred with a grimace. "That's pretty bad--but so's the subject." "Look here, Fred," said Bojo, thus recalled from the tyranny of figures which kept swirling before his eyes. "I want to talk to you. I'm worried about your letting Louise Varney in on Pittsburgh & New Orleans; besides I suspect you've plunged a darned sight deeper than you ought." And from the moral superiority of a man of force, he read him a lecture on the danger to the mere outsider of risking all on one hazard--a sensible pointed warning which DeLancy accepted contritely, in utter ignorance of the preacher's own perilous position. It was well after seven when they stepped out on the icy station amid the gay crowd of week-enders. Patsie, at the reins, halloed to them from a rakish cutter, and the next moment they were off over the crackling snow with long, luminous, purple shadows at their sides, racing past other sleighs with jingling bells and shrieks of recognition. "Heavens, Patsie, you're worse than Fred with his car! I say, look out--you missed that cutter by a foot," said Bojo, who had taken the seat beside the young Eskimo at an imperious command. "Pooh, that's nothing!" said that reckless person. "Watch this." With a sudden swerve she drew past a contending sleigh and gained the head of the road by a margin so narrow that the occupants of the back seat broke into many cries. "Here, let me out-- Murder!-- Police!" "Don't worry, the snow's lovely and soft!" Patsie shouted back, delighted. "Turned over myself yesterday--doesn't hurt a bit." This encouraging information was received with frantic cries and demands on Bojo to take the reins.