"I would," John Martin replied, with a significant chuckle. "Even though it were some one who had not stood very high in your estimation?" "Even though it were the devil." "Now, look here, Mr. Martin," Shiel said, trying to appear calm. "I will devote all my energies and all my time to your cause--the overthrow of the Modern Sorcery Company, if only--if only, in the event of my being successful, you will give me some hope of being permitted to win your daughter." "I promise you that hope, and any other you may see fit to aspire to," John Martin said, with a grim smile, "since there isn't the remotest chance of your succeeding in the task you have set yourself. Believe me, it will take both money and wits to get the better of Hamar, Curtis and Kelson." "Anyhow, I have your permission to try. I shall do my best." "You may do what you like," John Martin rejoined, "so long as you don't talk to me again about Gladys till you've redeemed your pledge, that is to say, till you've overthrown the Modern Sorcery Company. In the meanwhile, I must ask you to abstain from seeing her." "I am afraid I can't promise that." "Can't promise that," John Martin cried, his eyes suffusing with sudden passion. "Can't you! Then damn it, you must. I'm not going to have my daughter throw herself away on a penniless puppy. There, curse it all, you know what I think of you now--you're a bumptious puppy, and I swear you shall not come within a mile of her." "I shall," Shiel retorted, drawing himself up to his full height. "I shall see her whenever she will permit me--and since she is not at home at the present moment, I shall now await her return outside the house, and defy the savage old bull-dog inside it." Leaving John Martin too taken aback with astonishment to articulate a syllable, Shiel withdrew. True to his word, he waited to see Gladys. He paced up and down the road in front of the house from eleven o'clock in the morning, when his interview with John Martin had terminated, till eight o'clock in the evening, and was just beginning to think he would have to give up all hope of seeing her that day, when she came in sight. "Really!" she exclaimed, after Shiel had explained the situation. "Do you mean to say you have stayed here all day?" "Of course I have," Shiel answered. "I told your father I would see you, and I meant to stay here till I did." "And what good has it done you?" "All the good in the world. I shall sleep twice as well for it. I'm more in love with you than you think, and I mean to marry you one day. My prospects at present are absolutely Thames Embankmentish, but no matter, I've hit upon a capital way of ferreting out the secrets of the Modern Sorcery Company. I shall get employed by them"--and he told Gladys of the advertisement he had seen in the paper.