"Maybe you’ve beat me this time. Maybe you’ve had things your own way for once. But the fight isn’t over yet. There’s plenty of it coming, and I’ll see that you get it. Let that scoundrel Kendrick look out for himself. He can hire whipper-snappers"--by this term I judged that Peter Bolton referred to me, and I was pleased to think that he credited his discomfiture in part to my humble efforts--"he can hire a line of whipper-snappers that would reach from here to the ferries, but he can’t save himself. I’ll drag him down. I’ll strip him to the last rag. When I get through with him he won’t have a dollar to his name. There won’t be a foot of land or one brick on top of another that he can call his own." Peter Bolton spoke more rapidly than I had supposed was possible to him, and his face flamed with the wrath that had carried his tongue away. "I’m sorry to hear it," I said politely. "I hope it won’t happen before I collect my month’s salary." Bolton looked at me venomously from his deep-set eyes, and his thin lips curled with sarcastic lines. "You’ve earned your salary this month," he said, with a return to his harsh drawl, "but it doesn’t follow that you’ll get it. You beat me this time, but it isn’t the end." "You did make rather a mess of it," I admitted. "You ought to have consulted somebody about it--an attorney, for instance." I spoke idly, without special meaning; but at my words Bolton’s face softened into a glance of sardonic humor. "Oh," he said slowly, "I don’t know but what you are right. Come around to my office in a day or two, and we’ll talk about the fee." He jumped to the conclusion that I was ready to accept a bribe, and he continued: "It’ll be anything in reason, young man, anything in reason." *CHAPTER XII* *THE LOTTERY TICKET* In the midst of the lull that followed the failure of Peter Bolton’s assault on the fortifications of commerce, I was surprised to find on my office desk one morning the following letter: RESPECTFUL SIR: to yours we this day instructed to remind you that your presence is more than agreeable. Having placed to your credit a money sum drawn according to ticket, should be your worshipful servant to have presented for payment. As ever your faithful, KWAN LUEY & Co.