"A dollar and a half! Why, my God, man! Oh well"--Scannel spread out his hands nonchalantly--"I shall simply go into bankruptcy--just as you said." "Oh, no, you won't," replied Jadwin, pushing back and crossing his legs. "I've had your financial standing computed very carefully, Mr. Scannel. You've got the ready money. I know what you can stand without busting, to the fraction of a cent." "Why, it's ridiculous. That handful of wheat will cost me three hundred thousand dollars." "Pre-cisely." And then all at once Scannel surrendered. Stony, imperturbable, he drew his check book from his pocket. "Make it payable to bearer," said Jadwin. The other complied, and Jadwin took the check and looked it over carefully. "Now," he said, "watch here, Dave Scannel. You see this check? And now," he added, thrusting it into Hargus's hands, "you see where it goes. There's the principal of your debt paid off." "The principal?" "You haven't forgotten the interest, have you? won't compound it, because that might bust you. But six per cent interest on three hundred thousand since 1878, comes to--let's see--three hundred and sixty thousand dollars. And you still owe me nine hundred thousand bushels of wheat." He ciphered a moment on a sheet of note paper. "If I charge you a dollar and forty a bushel for that wheat, it will come to that sum exactly.... Yes, that's correct. I'll let you have the balance of that wheat at a dollar forty. Make the check payable to bearer as before." For a second Scannel hesitated, his face purple, his teeth grinding together, then muttering his rage beneath his breath, opened his check book again. "Thank you," said Jadwin as he took the check. He touched his call bell. "Kinzie," he said to the clerk who answered it, "after the close of the market to-day send delivery slips for a million and a half wheat to Mr. Scannel. His account with us has been settled." Jadwin turned to the old man, reaching out the second check to him. "Here you are, Hargus. Put it away carefully. You see what it is, don't you? Buy your Lizzie a little gold watch with a hundred of it, and tell her it's from Curtis Jadwin, with his compliments.... What, going, Scannel? Well, good-by to you, sir, and hey!" he called after him, "please don't slam the door as you go out." But he dodged with a defensive gesture as the pane of glass almost leaped from its casing, as Scannel stormed across the threshold. Jadwin turned to Hargus, with a solemn wink. "He did slam it after all, didn't he?" The old fellow, however, sat fingering the two checks in silence. Then he looked up at Jadwin, scared and trembling. "I--I don't know," he murmured, feebly. "I am a very old man. This--this is a great deal of money, sir. I--I can't say; I--I don't know. I'm an old man ... an old man." "You won't lose 'em, now?" "No, no. I'll deposit them at once in the Illinois Trust. I shall ask--I should like." "I'll send a clerk with you."