“We were to lunch somewhere and then go to the Board of Trade to see them do things with lard.” She had drawled the words out as slowly as possible, and now she glanced at him in mock distress. “John’s gone off, you see, and forgotten all about me.” He stopped and gazed at her seriously. “I wish to propose,” he said, “three cheers for John Bagsbury. For future delivery,” he added, noting her look of alarm. “I’m getting to like him better right along.” “It’s a strange thing,” Jack remarked a few minutes later, as he looked at her across the little round table; “it’s a strange thing, but when I’ve been with you a few minutes my troubles, even the big ones, begin to look like jokes. I really think they are jokes until I get off by myself again.” “Tell me about Mr. Curtin,” said Dick, quickly. “I can guess what Mr. Hillsmead did to make you wild, but,” the dimple which had cautiously appeared at one corner of her mouth vanished again, “but how has Mr. Curtin been bothering you?” She grew very serious as he told her of the assistant cashier’s performances of the day before; and when he had finished, she told him how John was worried over the betrayal of his secret. “Do you suppose,” she asked anxiously, “that there’s any connection; that Mr. Curtin had anything to do with it?” He shook his head. “I give it up. But I know this: we’ve been pretty foolish not to tell Mr. Bagsbury. We’ve been so afraid of making ourselves ridiculous that we haven’t thought of anything else.” “We’re such perfect babes in the wood at all this sort of thing,” said Dick. “Now I suppose that any person of average business intelligence would see through it all in two minutes. But I believe we ought to tell him, anyway. Let’s do it to-night.” “Both of us?” “Of course, I wouldn’t do it alone for anything. Come, let’s look at the lard corner.” Just as they were entering the big Board of Trade building an old man walked briskly past them and turned into the office of Ball, Snyder, and Jones, Brokers. Even at that place, where the money value of mere seconds is impressive, there were a dozen people who paused to glance curiously after him. Dick and Jack Dorlin did not know who he was, and if any one had taken the trouble to tell them that it was William G. Pickering, they would have thought nothing of it. And yet the fact, that at just that moment that one man should enter that particular office, was interesting.