*BARGAINING* "I thought you would come," said the hard, dry voice of Peter Bolton, as he leaned back in his chair and surveyed me with a sardonic smile. "Why, yes," I replied cheerfully. "Jim Morgan told me that you wanted to see me, and I took chances on his telling the truth." As Jim Morgan was the prize-fighter who was at the head of Bolton’s bureau of private information and defense, I had reason to assume that he spoke by authority. Peter Bolton looked at me suspiciously, and then gave grudging acknowledgment of Morgan’s agency. "I never write," he grumbled. "You never know whose hands a letter will fall into." "A very prudent rule," I returned. He shook his head slowly, drew down the corners of his mouth, and rubbed his hands. "Well, I suppose by this time you are about ready to take up with my offer," he said with a look of shrewd cunning. "Your offer? I really didn’t know that you had made one," I answered. His cold blue eyes looked searchingly into my face for a minute. Then he said: "You’ll find it best to take up with my terms. I don’t know what salary you’re getting from Kendrick, but you’re going to lose it." "I didn’t expect to keep it for ever. Did Mr. Kendrick tell you he was going to discharge me?" "Tell me?" began Peter Bolton with a sarcastic leer. "He didn’t have to. I’ve got better information than he can give. Your man Kendrick is going broke within the next thirty days, and he won’t have any use for that fine herd of clerks he has been keeping." As Peter Bolton evidently expected me to comment on this prophecy, I murmured that I was sorry to hear it. "You needn’t be," said he with an attempt to be amiable. "I’ll take care of you." "You are very kind," I said. "But how do you know that Wharton Kendrick is going under?" "How do I know?" he returned with something of passion under his drawling tone. "Why, I know your man Kendrick like a book. I’ve known him for forty years. I’ve watched his business. I’ve watched him. Oh, he can fool you fellows with his smirking face, and his open-handed way of throwing money about. But I know that it’s borrowed money, and the man who makes a show on borrowed money comes to the end of it some day, doesn’t he?" Bolton ended querulously, as though he was making complaint against Wharton Kendrick for not having gone into bankruptcy long before. "Oh, I think you are mistaken," I said. "Mr. Kendrick is known to be very rich." "Reported to be very rich, you mean," he said in his most sarcastic drawl. "Oh, there’s no doubt about it," I returned warmly. I hoped to provoke him into saying more than he intended. Peter Bolton took up the challenge.