"Power!" he whispered, as though to voice the inner inclining of the picture. "Life, air, breath--the very breath of the world in my hands--power absolutely, at last!" CHAPTER II. THE PARTNERS. Then, as was his habit, translating ideas into immediate action, he strode to a door at the far end of the office, flung it open and said: "See here a minute, Wally!" "Busy!" came an answering voice, from behind a huge roll-top desk. "Of course! But drop it, drop it. I've got news for you." "Urgent?" asked the voice, coldly. "Very. Come in here, a minute. I've got to unload!" From behind the big desk rose the figure of a man about five and forty, sandy-haired, long-faced and sallow, with a pair of the coldest, fishiest eyes--eyes set too close together--that ever looked out of a flat and ugly face. A man precisely dressed, something of a fop, with just a note of the "sport" in his get-up; a man to fear, a man cool, wary and dangerous--Maxim Waldron, in fact, the Billionaire's right-hand man and confidant. Waldron, for some time affianced to his eldest daughter. Waldron the arch-corruptionist; Waldron, who never yet had been "caught with the goods," but who had financed scores of industrial and political campaigns, with Flint's money and his own; Waldron, the smooth, the suave, the perilous. "What now?" asked he, fixing his pale blue eyes on the Billionaire's face. "Come in here, and I'll tell you." "Right!" And Waldron, brushing an invisible speck of dust from the sleeve of his checked coat, strolled rather casually into the Billionaire's office. Flint closed the door. "Well?" asked Waldron, with something of a drawl. "What's the excitement?" "See here," began the great financier, stimulated by the drug. "We've been wasting our time, all these years, with our petty monopolies of beef and coal and transportation and all such trifles!" "So?" And Waldron drew from his pocket a gold cigar-case, monogrammed with diamonds. "Trifles, eh?" He carefully chose a perfecto. "Perhaps; but we've managed to rub along, eh? Well, if these are trifles, what's on?" "Air!" "Air?" Waldron's match poised a moment, as with a slight widening of the pale blue eyes he surveyed his partner. "Why--er--what do you mean, Flint?" "The Air Trust!" "Eh?" And Waldron lighted his cigar. "A monopoly of breathing privileges!" "Ha! Ha!" Waldron's laugh was as mirthful as a grave-yard raven's croak. "Nothing to it, old man. Forget it, and stick to--" "Of course! I might have expected as much from you!" retorted the Billionaire tartly. "You've got neither imagination nor--" "Nor any fancy for wild-goose chases," said Waldron, easily, as he sat down in the big leather chair. "Air? Hot air, Flint! No, no, it won't do! Nothing to it nothing at all."