"I hope you're satisfied," said Wheaton weakly. Twice, within a year, he had felt the fingers of an angry man at his throat and he did not relish the experience. "I'm never satisfied," said Margrave, picking up his hat. Wheaton wished to make a bargain with him, to assure his own immunity; but he did not know how to accomplish it. Margrave had threatened him, and he wished to dull the point of the threat, but he was afraid to ask a promise of him. He said, as Margrave opened the door to go out: "Do you think Fenton noticed anything?" His tone was so pitiful in its eagerness that Margrave laughed in his face. "I don't know, Jim, and I don't give a damn." Wheaton did not follow him to the door, but Margrave seemed in no hurry to leave. The watchman went forward to let him out at the side entrance, and Margrave paused to light a cigar very deliberately and to urge one on the watchman. "If he'd only been sure the old man would have died to-night," he reflected as he walked up the street, "he'd have given me Porter's shares, easy." He went to his office, entertaining himself with this pleasant speculation. "If I'd got out of the bank with that package he'd never dared squeal," he presently concluded. Timothy Margrave was a fair judge of character. CHAPTER XXVIII BROKEN GLASS John Saxton was a good deal the worse for wear as he swung himself from a sleeper in the Clarkson station and bolted for a down-town car. Coal mining is a dirty business, and there are limits to the things that can be crowded into a suit-case. He had been crawling through four-foot veins of Kansas coal in the interest of the Neponset Trust Company, and had been delayed a day longer than he had expected. He continued to be in a good deal of a hurry after he reached his office, and he kicked aside the mail which rustled under the door as he opened it, and knelt hastily before the safe and began rattling the tumblers of the combination. He pulled out a long envelope and then with more composure consulted his watch.