Produced by Donald Cummings and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) THE MAKER OF OPPORTUNITIES By GEORGE GIBBS The Maker of Opportunities The Forbidden Way The Bolted Door Tony's Wife The Medusa Emerald D. APPLETON AND COMPANY NEW YORK [Illustration: "But the Great Head rocks didn't hear."] THE MAKER OF OPPORTUNITIES BY GEORGE GIBBS AUTHOR OF "THE FORBIDDEN WAY," "THE BOLTED DOOR," ETC. [Illustration] ILLUSTRATED BY EDMUND FREDERICK NEW YORK AND LONDON D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 1912 COPYRIGHT, 1912, BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY Copyright, 1905, by The Metropolitan Magazine Company Copyright, 1905, 1906, by Street and Smith Copyright, 1911, by the Red Book Corporation _Published April, 1912_ Printed in the United States of America LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACING PAGE "But the Great Head rocks didn't hear." _Frontispiece_ "'I beg pardon,' he repeated, 'but isn't this yours?'" 66 "'What a lot of vermilion you use.'" 142 "'You are supposed to be playing the golf of the New Era.'" 256 THE MAKER OF OPPORTUNITIES CHAPTER I It was two o'clock. Mr. Mortimer Crabb pushed back the chair from his breakfast tray and languidly took up the morning paper. He had a reputation (in which he delighted) of dwelling in a Castle of Indolence, and took particular pains that no act of his should belie it. There were persons who smiled at his affectations, for he had a studio over a stable in one of the cross streets up town, where he dawdled most of his days, supine in his easy chair. The age was running to athletics, so Mr. Crabb in public had become the apostle and high priest of flaccidity. He raised a supercilious eyebrow at tennis, drawled his disparagement of polo and racquets and recoiled at the mere mention of college football. But those highest in Crabb's favor knew that there were evenings when he met professional pugilists at this same shrine of æstheticism, who, at liberal compensation, matched their skill and heft to his.