“I figure that, unless you are doing something outside this office, you will need proxies for 50,000 shares more to give you absolute control and elect your own board of directors and carry out your plans in connection with Keokuk & Northern.” Not by so much as the twinkling of an eye did the little man betray that he was interested in Rock’s words, or that the clerk’s meddling with the firm’s affairs was at all out of the ordinary. “Mr. Greener,” said the clerk, very earnestly, “I should like to try to get them for you.” “Yes?” he squeaked, absent-mindedly. “Yes, sir,” answered Rock. “Go ahead, then,” said Mr. Greener, carelessly. “Let me know next week how you are getting on.” An expression of disappointment came into Rock’s face, whereupon Greener added: “Of course if you succeed I’ll do well by you.” “What will you do, Mr. Greener?” asked the clerk, looking straight at him. “I’ll give you,” he squeaked, encouragingly, “ten thousand dollars.” “Is that a good price for the work, Mr. Greener? I may have to pay out a great deal,” added the young clerk with a faint touch of bitterness. “It is all that it is worth to me, Mr. Rock, and I think it is worth more to me than to anybody else. I’ll raise your salary from sixteen hundred to two thousand a year. That’s a great deal more money than I had at your age, Mr. Rock.” “Very well,” said Rock, quietly. “I’ll do the best I can.” But once away from Greener, his face flushed with anger and indignation. “Ten thousand for what might be worth ten millions to the financier!” The clerk had studied Greener’s Napoleonic methods for two years. He had learned patience for one thing, and he had waited for his chance. It had come at last, and he knew it. Events make the man. Rock had thought carefully, intelligently, and, best of all, coolly. He had planned logically. It was a good plan; it was the only feasible plan, and it could not be upset by meddlesome courts. How Mr. John F. Greener had failed to think of the same plan was a bit strange. The unscrupulousness of it did not frighten the clerk. He had the instincts of a financier of the Greener school. The clerk all that week did nothing but collect the Iowa Midland proxies promised by the complaisant trust companies. They amounted to 21,200 shares. From prominent brokerage houses, by means of alluring and unauthorized promises, he secured 7,100 shares; in all he had 28,300 shares. This meant that at the approaching annual meeting Mr. Greener could vote 138,900 shares out of a possible total of 320,000. Unless the opposition could unite, the election was already sure to “go Mr. Greener’s way.”