[Illustration: "EVEN REDGE ... HAD BEEN ALLOWED TO HOLD HIM"] "When I say I've made the money," continued Leverich, "I mean that I actually _have_ made most of it--made it out of nothing! like the first chapter of Genesis. If a man has money to start with, he can add to it as easily as you can roll up a snowball. It's no credit to him. But I've had only my brains. I've seen money where other men couldn't, and nothing has stood in my way of getting to it. That's the whole secret of success. And my attitude's fair--you couldn't find a fairer. When one of your clerks falls sick, you pay him his full salary for three or four months till he's around again. _I_ know! Well, I don't do any such stunts. When I was a clerk myself, I was on the sick-list once for three months, and nobody paid me. After the first month I was bounced, and I didn't expect anything else. I didn't expect any philanthropical business, and I don't give it. That's fair, isn't it? I don't give quarter, and I don't expect any. If I'm squeezed, I pay. I don't stand still in the middle of a deal and snivel about what I can do and what I can't do. I don't snivel about what you call moral obligations. I only recognize money obligations. Why, see here, Alexander," he broke off, "if you use the influence you spoke of, you don't have to tell me what it is--you don't have to tell anybody but Hardanger. Cater himself needn't know that you had anything to do with it." "But I'd know," said Justin quietly. Leverich lost his easy manner; his jaw protruded. "Very well, then; it comes down to this: If you fail us now, out of any of your fool scruples toward that poor devil across the street,--who's bound to get the blood sucked out of him anyway,--you ruin your own prospects, and you try and cheat us out of the money we put up on you. By ----, if you see any honor in that, I don't." "Mr. Leverich," said Justin, raising his head simply, with a steely gleam in his eyes that matched the other's, "when I try to cheat you or Lewiston or any man out of what has been put up on me, I'll give you leave to say what you please. At present I'll say good morning." [Illustration: "AFTER THIS HE ONLY APPEARED IN THE VILLAGE STREET GUARDED ON EITHER SIDE BY A FEMALE SNOW"] Leverich shrugged his shoulders and turned his back as he bent over his desk. Justin picked up his hat and went out, brushing, as he did so, against a dark, pleasant-faced man who had been sitting in the next room. Something in his face instantly conveyed to Justin the knowledge that the conversation he had just been engaged in had grown louder than the partition warranted. The next instant he recognized the man as a Mr. Warren, of Rondell & Co. Both men turned to look back at each other, and both bowed. The action had a certain definiteness in it, unwarranted by the slightness of the meeting. The next moment Justin was in the street. [Illustration: "TO PUT HER YOUNG ARMS AROUND LOIS AND HOLD HER CLOSE WITH ACHING PITY"]