"Ah! ah!"--and he raised himself again and pointed a bandaged hand at me. "I see that you are a man of penetration! You have a keen notion of business! You anticipate me! I did sell the infernal thing to a trust, but there was no shaking it! They made me president of the combination, and I control more buttons than any other living man! My dear sir, I dictate the button prices of the world. I can tell you to a nicety how many buttons are swallowed annually by the babies of the universe. But I hope, sir, that I use my power wisely and without oppressing the people." Gillespie lay on his back, wrapped in my dressing-gown, his knees raised, his bandaged arms folded across his chest. Since bringing him into the house I had studied him carefully and, I must confess, with increasing mystification. He was splendidly put up, the best-muscled man I had ever seen who was not a professional athlete. His forearms and clean-shaven face were brown from prolonged tanning by the sun, but otherwise his skin was the pink and white of a healthy baby. His short light hair was combed smoothly away from a broad forehead; his blue eyes were perfectly steady--they even invited and held scrutiny; when he was not speaking he closed his lips tightly. He appeared in nowise annoyed by his predicament; the house itself seemed to have no interest for him, and he accepted my ministrations in murmurs of well-bred gratitude. I half believed the fellow to be amusing himself at my expense; but he met my eyes calmly. If I had not caught a lunatic I had certainly captured an odd specimen of humanity. He was the picture of wholesome living and sound health; but he talked like a fool. The idea of a young woman like Helen Holbrook giving two thoughts to a silly youngster like this was preposterous, and my heart hardened against him. "You are flippant, Mr. Gillespie, and my errand with you is serious. There are places in this house where I could lock you up and you would never see your button factory again. You seem to have had some education--" "The word does me great honor, Donovan. They chucked me from Yale in my junior year. Why, you may ask? Well, it happened this way: You know Rooney, the Bellefontaine Cyclone? He struck New Haven with a vaudeville outfit, giving boxing exhibitions, poking the bag and that sort of fake. At every town they invited the local sports to dig up their brightest amateur middle-weight and put him against the Cyclone for five rounds. I brushed my hair the wrong way for a disguise and went against him." "And got smashed for your trouble, I hope," I interrupted.