"Yes, but you've got a duty to me," he stormed, getting red in the face again. "You can bet your life that if it hadn't been for you, I'd never have been in this pickle. Come along now, Jim, I've got a lot of our railroad people to go in on this. They depend absolutely on my judgment. I'm a ruined man if I fail to show up at the meeting to-morrow with a majority of these shares. It won't make any difference to Billy Porter whether he wins out or not. He's got plenty of irons in the fire. I don't know as a matter of fact that I need these shares; but I want to be on the safe side. Does Porter know what you've got?" Wheaton shook his head. "Then what's the harm in selling them where you've got a chance, even if you wasn't under any obligations to me? If you didn't know until I told you that the old man was still on the hunt for this stuff, I don't see that you're bound to wait for him to come around and ask you to sell to him. How much shall I make it for?" He opened a drawer and pulled out his check-book. "They tell me Porter's pretty sick," Margrave continued, running the stubs of the check-book through his thick thumb and forefinger. "Billy isn't as young as he used to be. Very likely he'll never know you had any Traction stock," he added significantly. "How much shall I make it for, Jim?" Wheaton walked over to the window and looked down into the street, while Margrave watched him with pen in hand. "How much shall I make it for?" he asked more sharply. "You can't make it for anything, Mr. Margrave, and I want to say that I'm very much disappointed in the way you've tried to get it from me." Margrave swung around on him with an oath. But Wheaton went on, speaking carefully. "I can't imagine that the few shares of stock I hold can be of real importance in deciding the control of this company. I don't say I won't give you these shares, but I can't do it now." Margrave's face grew red and purple as Wheaton walked toward the door. "Maybe you think you can wring more out of Porter than you can out of me. But, by God, I'll take this out of you and out of him, too, if I go broke doing it." CHAPTER XXVI THE KEY TO A DILEMMA