It so chanced that on this morning when Halloran went plunging off to seek his fortune, Mr. G. Hyde Bigelow, in an equally uncertain frame of mind, was fronting _his_. Matters were going awry down in Chicago. The Board of Trade deal, thanks to the elation and consequent intermeddling of the paid figurehead, was wobbling dangerously. And at ten o'clock, while Le Duc was hearing sharp, straight-out words in the mahogany office, the heads of nearly a score of Michigan lumber firms were gathering in the city office of the Corrigans, not far away. Hard-headed old fellows they were, most of them--men with slouch hats and unkempt beards, men who wore high boots beneath their bagging trousers, and swore as they talked and breathed. And there they waited for Bigelow, to ask him where their money had gone and how he proposed to get it back. At length he came. “Good-morning, gentlemen,” he observed, as he laid aside his coat and stick and his silk hat. “Good-morning,” came from Corrigan, and “How are you?” from one or two others. One graybeard murmured to a neighbour that he wished he'd a known in the first place that Bigelow wore a silk hat. “You can't trust a dude,” he muttered. “Well, gentlemen,” the managing director began, drawing his report from his pocket, “I suppose a statement of what we have accomplished will----” But young Corrigan couldn't wait. “Excuse me, Mr. Bigelow--and gentlemen. I think we all know just about where we stand in this business. And------” “One moment, Mr. Corrigan. It is usual------” “What I have to say is not usual, Mr. Bigelow. It's so important that it takes precedence, to my notion. It concerns our existence as a working body and our relations with you, sir. And this meeting can't go forward until it has been laid before you, and you've had the chance to convince us that what has been reported to me is untrue--that it is, as we should hope, a malicious lie. Before we think of the question of going forward or backward as a combination we must settle the question of our mutual confidence as individuals. A shadow has been cast upon this confidence; and you know, every man of you--” the graybeards, some startled, others condescending, looked at him; Bigelow looked at him, too--“You know that our whole structure must rest on complete confidence in the men we choose to direct our affairs. If this is removed, we can't do business a day.” “I should suggest, Mr. Corrigan, that what you have to say had better come in the discussion that will follow the reading of the report. It is the object of this report to answer in advance all inquiries, to tell every fact about our work.” “You'd better wait, Harry,” observed a man in boots. “Let him read it.”