"Hold on there!" called out Beekman, in alarm. "Wait a bit! Is that what you call it-- my helping him? Why, there are just about ten thousand lawyers in the Borough of Manhattan who'd give their eyes to get the job. And, besides, don't laud me yet. Great Heavens, Leslie! Don't you understand that I've got a fat retainer in my pocket for all this?" The girl laughed in glee. "So much the better!" she exclaimed. Presently her brow wrinkled and she demanded: "Who paid it to you, Eliot?" "Colonel Morehead," quickly spoke up Beekman. "I wonder where he got the money?" she mused, then she laughed once more. "Probably my money," she said. "Wouldn't it be great if I were paying you for this?" "It would," answered Beekman in mock solemnity, "because, getting this much out of your coffers, I should have hopes in time of depleting your funds to a very large extent, so that some day in the future, having flim-flammed you out of a large proportion of your worldly wealth, I should then stand on that footing of American equality I mentioned to you the other night, and might, in turn, 'with all these worldly goods I thee endow'----" "Don't you be too sure," she said seriously. Nor was it given to them to know what the fates had in store for them, that the time was soon to come when Beekman should be on that equal footing, to which he referred, and, what is more, that he was to stand as the one man in the state, the cynosure of all eyes, his name on every lip. "At any rate," she went on, "it's fine of you to fight.... You're going to fight, aren't you?" He looked over her head far into the future. It was all hazy there, but in his ambitious purposes Beekman recognised that he held within his grasp the one big opportunity of his career. "Fight," he echoed, "to the last ditch." "And so am I," she went on enthusiastically. "We'll all fight, and we'll win; we're bound to win." "We're bound to win," he repeated, the blood surging through his veins. "And when we win--what then?" He looked deep into her eyes; but she cast them down before him. "Let's win first," she faltered. If only there had been a warning hand, a friendly voice to tell him what lay before him in the future! For could he have heard Wilkinson's words, that very afternoon, to the Assistant District Attorney: "The man who does me a favour I never forget; the man who injures me I never forgive,"--he might have thought twice before replying: "It's a go. You're quite right. We'll win first." X "You ought to have been there, Patrick! By jinks, you had ...!" exclaimed Wilkinson some months later as he watched the rings of smoke from his cigar float upwards to the ceiling of the Millionaires' Club. "I fixed him, didn't I, Colonel?" Colonel Morehead thought a moment before replying: