Before he took to vulturizing again Pentecost gave his attention to the rearrangement of the Harker game. An office that was “the thing” was found in precisely the locality required, and in a modest but high-class building. When it came to the matter of furnishings, not an item escaped him. Being thoroughly aware that the various articles in a room have voices and can cry out, he took good care to have only those which would use the tones that he wanted. Having now an office which would eloquently lie for them, the next thing in Mr. Pentecost’s scheme of operation was to secure a business reputation that would do the same. With this in view he and Harker went after inventions or devices for the firm to take hold of and exploit, that had some degree of solid merit. At the end of a year they had been able to get only two, in each case having to purchase from a company that was running it at a profit. Expensive deals, but both men were plungers. They found another during the second year, and that made three, which was enough. Companies were organized for each and the business carried on with success and profit, large dividends going out to the stockholders; the firm, however, on account of the expenses involved in buying out going concerns, made nothing. Harker was now in a position to engineer another class of enterprise with entire safety. The firm was well-known, conservative, solid. Stock of companies it organized was bought without question. Instead of piking along he found he had in his hands swindles of great magnitude. With the solid business they were doing an occasional failure cut no figure. The most important members of the office force—the heads of departments as you might say—were all in the family. Harker’s family, I mean—Pentecost had none. Alfred Harker—son of the senior partner, twenty-two and a sharp one for his age—had charge of the office. Chief clerk, I suppose you might call him. The head stenographer, Miss Mary Finch Dugas, was a sister of Mrs. Harker, and the head accountant Mrs. Harker’s nephew. As for the others, it didn’t matter. Nothing could get by young Harker or Miss Dugas or the head accountant that there was any reason for keeping in the shade. So the rest of the force had been picked—like the furniture and decorations—to express innocence and respectability—and they did it. * * * * * When you realize that about two and a half years before this Mr. Pentecost (under another name) had been practising law in Chicago—and would most likely have been there still if he hadn’t been disbarred—and that during the seven years he’d been at it he’d got to be one of the most successful and sought-after defense attorneys they’d ever had out there, you’ll have a pretty good basis to figure on him, especially when I tell you the sort of business he drifted into and his amazing methods of handling it.