“It’s a tarnation sight better than being bullied by a warder in Auburn State’s prison,” said the Judge, as he too resumed his chair. “Take my word for that.” Schuyler Tenney crossed his legs nervously at this, and coughed. Horace looked at them both in a mystified but uneasy silence. “You heard what I said?” queried Wendover, brusquely, after a moment’s pause. “Undoubtedly I did,” answered Horace. “But--but its application escaped me.” “What I mean is”--the Judge hesitated for a moment to note Tenney’s mute signal of dissuasion, and then went on: “We might as well not beat about the bush--what I mean is that there’s a penitentiary job in this thing for somebody, unless we all keep our heads, and have good luck to boot. You’ve done your best to get us all into a hole, with your confounded airs and general foolishness. If worse comes to worst, perhaps we can save ourselves, but there won’t be a ghost of a chance for you. I’ll see to that myself. If we come to grief, you shall pay for it.” “What do you mean?” asked Horace, in a subdued tone, after a period of silent reflection. “Where does the penitentiary part come in?” “I don’t agree with the Judge at all,” interposed Tenney, eagerly. “I don’t think there’s any need of looking on the dark side of the thing. We don’t _know_ that Tracy knows anything. And then, why shouldn’t we be able to get our own man appointed receiver?” “This is the situation,” said Wendover, speaking deliberately. “You advised Mrs. Minster to borrow four hundred thousand dollars for the purchase of certain machinery patents, and you drew up the papers for the operation. It happens that she already owned--or rather that the Mfg. Company already owned--these identical rights and patents. They were a part of the plant and business we put into the company at one hundred and fifty thousand dollars when we moved over from Cadmus. But nobody on her side, except old Clarke, knew just what it was that we put in. He died in Florida, and it was arranged that his papers should pass to you. There was no record that we had sold the right of the nail machine.”