At nine-thirty the following morning, the two brothers walked into the private office of Randolph Mason and laid down seven thousand dollars on his desk. Mason counted out two thousand and thrust it into his pocket. "Gentlemen," he said shortly, "here is the five thousand dollars which I promised. I commend you for following my instructions strictly." "We have obeyed you to the very letter," said Gordon Montcure, handing the money to his brother, "except in one particular." "What!" cried Mason, turning upon him, "you dared to change my plans?" "No," said Gordon Montcure, stepping back, "only the fool lawyer suggested the repurchase before I could do it." "Ah," said Randolph Mason, sinking back into his chair, "a trifling detail. I bid you goodmorning." III--WOODFORD'S PARTNER _[See Clark's Criminal Law, p. 274, or any good text-book for the general principles of law herein concerned. See especially State vs. Reddick, 48 Northwestern Reporter, 846, and the long list of cases there cited, on the proposition that the taking of partnership funds by one of the general partners, even with felonious intent, constitutes no crime. Also, Gary vs. Northwestern Masonic Aid Association, 53 Northwestern Reporter, 1086.]_ I. AFTER some thirty years, one begins to appreciate in a slight degree the mystery of things in counter-distinction to the mystery of men. He learns with dumb horror that startling and unforeseen events break into the shrewdest plans and dash them to pieces utterly, or with grim malice wrench them into engines of destruction, as though some mighty hand reached out from the darkness and shattered the sculptor's marble, or caught the chisel in his fingers and drove it back into his heart.