“Yes, indeed,” acquiesced Stewardson, solemnly. “Wonderful! Great judgment!” pursued Jeming-ham, with a sort of boyish enthusiasm that made Stewardson think his superior had designs on the Klondike gold in the vaults. “He is so clear-cut--and never, never loses his head! To tell you the truth,” and Jerningham lowered his voice, “I used to think he was an icicle--the sort of man nothing can disturb; but, for all his calmness and imperturbability, he has a great warm heart and a great big brain!” Stewardson had never before heard anybody accuse the president of the VanTwiller Trust Company of having any heart at all. Why had Welles taken the pains to pose before the Klondike miner as a philanthropist? And why had the imperturbable Ashton Welles been so perturbed the day before? “Ablest man in this country!” said Stewardson, his mind wrapped in the folds of his unformulated mysteries and his own half-asked questions. “So I'll get a little more of the stock,” said Jerningham. “Go ahead! You can't go wrong,” Stewardson assured him; “in fact, you ought to send some of your gold to the Assay Office and--” “What will you lend me on my gold--on the six millions I've got down-stairs?” asked Jerningham, with a frown. He looked intently at the vice-president with his cold, gray eyes, and Stewardson somehow fancied he saw a challenge in them; but he was an old bird at the game. He laughed and said, jovially: “Not a penny!” “I know it. It shows you how incompetent all these financial institutions are. You think you are doing your duty by being suspicious--what? Well, you don't unless you are intelligently suspicious. Never mind; you are only the vice-president. I'll buy the stock just the same.” And Jerningham laughed, exaggeratedly forgiving, and went away. Later in the day, when Stewardson thought he might sell his own holdings of VanTwiller Trust stock to Jerningham and trust to luck to pick it up again here and there at a lower figure, he called up a firm of brokers who made a specialty of dealing in bank and trust-company stocks. He was surprised to learn that V.T. stock was scarce and thirty points higher. The vice-president called up specialists and heard the same story--the floating supply had been quietly bought. “By whom?” he asked Earhart. “You know very well!” retorted the last broker, in an aggrieved tone of voice. “I do not!” Stewardson assured him. “Well, it all goes into your office.” “Mine?” “Yes--yours! And it's paid by your checks. The name signed is Alfred Jerningham. Are you going to cut a melon? Just whisper!” “Oh!” and Stewardson laughed. “What a suspicious man you are, Dave!”