“I all but had it fixed,” he said, “when this other fellow came around and began to bid up the price. But after that they gave me rather an exciting time. I’d make them an offer, and then they’d have a consultation with the mysterious stranger, and I’d have to raise it. We kept it going until the middle of the afternoon, and then he quit. I’d have been there yet if he hadn’t. The business roused my sporting blood somehow; I haven’t enjoyed anything so much in a long while.” Dick had helped tell the first part of the tale, eagerly snatching the thread away from Jack, and then handing it back to him with, “Oh, I don’t understand it, you tell him.” But toward the end she became silent, watching with puzzled curiosity the quick changes of expression in John Bagsbury’s face. When Jack finished, she asked,-- “Have we done something awfully, absurdly stupid?” “You have done one of the most thoughtful, generous things I ever heard of,” said John, “and it was a good move, too. Only we’ve all made a mistake in not telling each other just what we meant to do. You see, I was the man who sent around that broker.” “Good Lord!” said Jack. Dick began to laugh, and John Bagsbury’s smile gradually expanded into an indubitable grin; but Jack’s face remained as solemn as an old raven’s. “Laugh!” Dick commanded. “The mistake doesn’t matter. The stock is all in the fam--” She colored, and, correcting herself, proceeded to punish Jack for her slip. “The stock I bought is all in the family. Jack, of course, will vote his as he pleases.” “I’ve put in quite a day of it myself,” said John, quickly, in the interest of peace. “I would have been as busy as I care to be without any visitors, and there was a regular procession of them. And Curtin came in for a long talk, too. He had a story to tell, mostly about Sponley. Said he had known Sponley a long time, and that he had got him his job in the bank. Then, according to him, Sponley tried to make him pay for his place by giving away information about the bank. He bought Curtin’s stock, it seems, and then threatened to get him put out of the bank unless he did as he was told. Curtin says he told him of the loan to Pickering, thinking it was all right to do it; but he denies having known anything about the collateral. I suppose Sponley guessed at that.” Dick gave her fellow-amateur detective a look which said, “We’re saved from doing anything foolish about that,” but Jack was still thinking about the outrageous injustice of her last remark, and he affected not to see. “Do you think he was telling the truth?” she asked of John. “What are you going to do with him?” “Oh, it was probably somewhere near true. I shall let him stay till the year’s out. I have all I want on my hands just now, without trying to get rid of my officers. If he had a little more spunk, he might make a pretty good rascal; but as he is, he can’t do much harm.”