And the big, red-haired man lolled back in the opposite chair watching his stately visitor from between alert, half-shut eyes. The Fighter had waited, worked, planned, for months, for this very interview. Had Standish been better versed in sign-reading, he might have seen marks of Conover’s passage all along the tortuous finance trail that had at last led to this private office and still more private confession. But Standish had fallen not only into the trap but into the fatal mistake that had, a century earlier, in France, caused the severance of a goodly number of noble heads:--the error of underestimating a proletariat opponent. And now, unwittingly, he was about to pay the price. “Well,” observed Caleb, when the facts stood forth, marshaled in their sorry array, “How does all this int’rest _me_?” “I beg your pardon?” halted Standish. “I say, how does this int’rest _me_? Why should _I_ int’rest myself in doin’ this mighty big favor for you? Why don’t you turn to some of your own business associates--some men of your own class? Why do you come here?” “I--you were so kind as to help me before--” “An’ that gives me a license to do it again?” suggested Caleb. “That seems to be the rule all the world over. The rest of your crowd are either as bad off as you; or have too much sense to put cash into a sinkin’ enterprise, hey? So we come ’a runnin’ to the easy mark, Caleb Conover. He’ll be flattered to help us out.” “Mr. Conover!” coughed the poor old man. “That’s all right,” laughed Caleb. “I’m goin’ to help you out. So don’t get any grayer in the face than you are already. I’m goin’ to help you out for two reasons. First, because if I don’t, you’re ruined. Flat broke an’--” “Oh, no, Mr. Conover!” exclaimed Standish, tremblingly. “Not in the very least. It is a temporary crisis which--” “Which is goin’ to become perm’nent unless I sling out a life rope. What’s the use of lyin’ ’bout it?” Standish laughed. The pitiful, mirthless laugh of the man who is insulted and dare not resent the affront; who compromises with trampled self-respect by grinning where he should curse. “Good joke, ain’t it?” agreed Caleb, reading the broken aristocrat like an open page, “So much for my first reason. My second reason for helpin’ you out is because I want to do you a neighborly turn. We _are_ neighbors, ain’t we, Standish?” “Why of course! Of course!” cried the other wholly puzzled as to the trend of Caleb’s words; yet unfeignedly happy--and therefore eager to be genial--over the solution of his financial tangle. He coughed a pleasant acquiescence. “But,” went on Caleb, “it just occurs to me I ain’t been as neighborly with you as I’d oughter.” Absent-mindedly, as he talked, Conover drew forth his check book from a drawer and laid it open before him, fingering its long pink slips.