"You may make that twenty-four hundred even," said Saxton, "if it will do you any good." "I'm still shy," said Fenton. "Our friend clearly has the advantage." "I suppose if you'd known how near you'd come, you'd have hustled pretty hard for the others," said Margrave, sympathetically. "Oh, I don't know!" said Fenton, with the taunting inflection which gives slang to the phrase. He did not seem greatly disturbed. Saxton expected him to try to make terms; but the lawyer yawned in a preoccupied way, before he said: "So long as the margin's so small, you'd better be decent and hold your stockholders' meeting according to law and let us in. I'm sure Mr. Saxton and I would be of great assistance--wise counsel and all that." Margrave laughed his horse laugh. "You're a pretty good fellow, Fenton, and I'm sorry we can't do business together." "Oh, well, if you won't, you won't." Fenton took up his bundle and turned to the door. "I suppose you've got large chunks of Traction bonds, too, Margrave. There's nothing like going in deep in these things." Margrave winked. "Bonds be damned. I've been hearing for four years that Traction bondholders were going to tear up the earth, but I guess those old frosts down in New England won't foreclose on me. I'll pay 'em their interest as soon as I get to going and they'll think I'm hot stuff. And say!" he ejaculated, suddenly, "if Porter's got any of those bonds don't you get gay with 'em. It's a big thing for the town to have a practical railroad man like me running the street car lines; and if I can't make 'em pay nobody can." "You're not conceited or anything, are you, Margrave?" "By the way, young man," said Margrave, addressing Saxton for the first time, "we won't charge you anything for breakage to-day, but don't let it happen again." Margrave lingered to reassure and instruct his associates as to the adjourned meeting, and Saxton went out with Fenton. "That was rather tame," said John, as he and Fenton reached the street together. "I hoped there would be some fun. These shares belong to a Boston friend and they're for sale." "I wonder how Porter came to miss them," said Fenton, grimly. "You'd better keep them as souvenirs of the occasion. The engraving isn't bad. I turn up this way." They paused at the corner. He still carried his bundle and he drew from his pocket now a number of documents in manila jackets. "I have a little errand at the Federal Court." They stood by a letter box and the cars of the Traction Company wheezed and clanged up Varney Street past them. "The fact is," he said, "that Mr. Porter owns all of the bonds of the Traction Company." Saxton nodded. He understood now why the stockholders' meeting had not disturbed Fenton. "This is an ugly mess," the lawyer continued. "It would have suited me better to control the company through the stock so long as we had so much, but we didn't quite make it. You're friendly to Mr. Porter, aren't you?"