He stepped to a small table and, seating himself, produced check-book and pen. "I trust this will reimburse you for any financial loss you may have incurred by reason of this most unfortunate affair," he went on; "and as for the rest, leave that to me. I have, I believe, some little influence at headquarters, and I shall personally call upon the inspector." The officer glanced at the slip of paper which the other thrust into his hand. It was written in four figures. He looked up. Something in the old man's attitude--the unspoken pain in the eyes--the pathetic droop of the shoulders, struck a responsive chord in the heart of the officer. Impulsively he extended the hand in which the check remained unfolded. "Here, Mr. Carmody, I can't take your money. You didn't get me right. I start out to knife you for what I can get, an' you wind up by treatin' me white. It wasn't your fault, nohow, an' I didn't know how you felt about--things." There may have been just the shadow of a smile at the corners of Hiram Carmody's mouth as he waved a dismissal. "We will consider the incident closed," he said. At the door the officer turned to the younger man, who had been a silent listener. "It's a pity to waste yourself that way. It's a punk game, kid, take it from me--they don't last! Where's your Broadway Bills of ten years ago? Stop an' think, kid. Where are they at?" "My God," he muttered, as he passed down the broad stairway, "how many old fathers in New York is hidin' their feelin's behind a bold front, an' at the same time eatin' their hearts out with worry for their boys! An' folks callin' _them_ good fellows! "Money ain't everything in this here world, after all," he added, as his gaze traveled over the paintings and tapestries that lined the great hall. Above stairs an uncomfortable atmosphere of constraint settled upon father and son. Both felt the awkwardness of the situation. Young Carmody was a man with a heart as warm as his ways were wild. His was an impulsive nature which acted upon first impressions. Loving alike a fight or a frolic, he entered into either with a zest that made of them events to be remembered. He glanced across to where his father stood beside the table toying with a jade ink-well, and noted the unwonted droop of the shoulders and the unfamiliar gaze of the gray eyes in which the look of arrogance had dulled almost to softness--a pathetic figure, standing there in his own house--alone--unloved--a stranger to his only son. The boy saw for the first time, not the banker, the dictator of high finance--but the _man_. Could it be that here was something he had missed? That through the long years since the death of his wife, the sweet-faced mother whom the boy remembered so vividly, this strange, inscrutable old man had craved the companionship of his son--had loved him?