"The transaction will be safely beyond the criminal statutes," said Mason, "although it is close to the border line of the law." "'Beyond, is as good as a mile," said Gordon Montcure; "let us hear your plan." "It is this," said Mason. "Down at Lynn, Massachusetts, there is a certain retired shoe manufacturer of vast wealth, accumulated by questionable transactions. He is now passing into the sixties, and, like every man of his position, is restless and unsatisfied. Five years ago he concluded to build a magnificent residence in the suburbs of Lynn. He spared nothing to make the place palatial in every respect. The work has been completed within the past summer. The grounds are superb, and the place is indeed princely. As long as the palace was in process of building, the old gentleman was interested and delighted; but no sooner was it finished than, like all men of his type, he was at once dissatisfied. He now thinks that he would like to travel on the continent, but he has constructed a Frankenstein Monster, which he imagines requires his personal care. He will not trust it to an agent, he does not dare to rent it, and he can find no purchaser for such a palace in such a little city. The mere fact that he cannot do exactly as he pleases is a source of huge vexation to such a man as old Barton Woodlas, of the Shoe Trust." The two Montcures apparently gave no visible evidence of their mighty surprise and interest at the mention of the man who had robbed their father, yet Mason evidently saw something in the tail of their eyes, for he smiled with the lower half of his face, and continued: "You, sir," he said, speaking directly to Sidney Montcure, "must go to Lynn and buy this house in the morning." "Buy the house!" answered the man, bitterly, "your irony approaches the sublime; we have only five thousand dollars and no security. How could we buy a house?"