Abner Hildreth was closeted in the parlor of his bank with a grave, but eager-faced man of perhaps fifty, who sat with his left hand doubled up into a fist, while he snapped the spaces between the knuckles with the fingers of the right, making a succession of little nervous snaps, which would have annoyed a more irritable person than Hildreth.

The banker had been reading aloud to his companion, and half a dozen copies of the Thebes Daily Enterprise lay open on a chair by his side. Hildreth had been reading the leading articles one after the other, and had just concluded, the series.

"I don't like the looks of it, Duncan. I don't know what it all means, or how much."

"Perhaps he is only guessing, and getting things wrong. These newspaper men often do that, you know."

"Yes—" returned Hildreth, meditatively, "but Braine isn't that sort. He is apt to surprise you just the other way. When you squeeze him to see if he knows what he has been saying, you're apt to find out he knows a good deal more. He's a cautious fellow, and not too previous." [Hildreth's speech declines to reduce itself to subjection, and must be reported faithfully.] "Besides, I particularly cautioned him when he began this series on 'Thebes as a Railroad Centre,' to go slow, and deal in glittering generalities. I told him we weren't quite ready to call the hand yet."

"What did he say?"

"Not much. He said he understood the situation, and I suppose he really thought so. I'm afraid he's upset the milk pail. I wish I'd taken him into full confidence."

"I wish you had, almost. But if you had, we should have had to let him in a good deal deeper than we intend. I suppose he's keen enough to know how thick the butter is on a slice of bread, when he gets a good look at it?"

"Keen enough? Yes, he's keen enough for anything. I'm afraid he's been too keen for us. I don't know what he's up to, or how much he knows, but it looks serious. Maybe after all it would have been cheaper to let him in on the ground floor, instead of pretending. What if he's leased the ground floor himself, and made up his mind to turn us out?"

"Had he money enough for that?"

"No, I suppose not. But brains count sometimes, and he's got brains. Couldn't you find out anyway what Van Duyn means to do?"

"No. He said he was in other things, and couldn't go in with us. Of course that means whatever he wanted it to mean. With a man of his wealth and banking connections, being in one thing or twenty things, don't prevent his going into others. But whether he's up to anything or not, I couldn't find out."

"Well, it looks bad. Braine played it very sharp on me when he got that charter and ferry franchise. I didn't know he knew of their existence, or would dream of their value if he did. Then he went to New York and got in with a lot of people there. I don't know how. Then came the sudden drop in Northern stock before we began selling short. Somebody must have been selling it quietly for days. Then when we went in to buy, you couldn't get a controlling interest at any price, and all we can make out is that a big block of it is held off the market. Now comes this series of articles."

"Read that last paragraph again."

Hildreth took up the paper and read:

"These plans are now about matured, and the hopes of Thebes approach fruition. It is yet too soon to publish particulars, but this much, at any rate, may be stated. A strong body of capitalists have secured control of the lines south of Columbia. Associated with them are the owners of the franchise for the connecting line between Thebes and Columbia. Contracts for the rapid construction of that line have been let, and the road will be in operation by the new year. Negotiations are in progress, or soon will be, for a traffic arrangement with the roads running north from Thebes, and there is now every assurance that the great tide of commerce between the North and South will speedily flow through this city."

The two sat silent for a time after the reading was done. Then Duncan said:

"Hildreth, there's more behind that; the fellow has a masked battery of some kind. Let's have the others down at once."

Hildreth rang for a clerk to whom he said:

"Telegraph to Tucker and Fanning to come down by the night express without fail, and meet Duncan here at ten in the morning. Say it's imperative."

When the clerk had gone, Duncan asked:

"What shall we do about Braine, in the mean time?"

"That's what puzzles me. On the whole, I think we'd better have him here to-night, and have it out with him some way. We may not be able to manage him, but I think we can. At all events, we'd best know how much powder he has in his magazine. Confound the fellow!"

"Don't be too hasty. He is evidently a man we want with us, and of course we can get him in some way. A very little slice of this cut will seem a feast to him. Send for him, and when we get him here we'll manage him."

Hildreth rang again, and said to the answering clerk:

"Go up to Braine's after you lock the vault for the day, and tell him to come down and see me here at eight o'clock sharp."

When this message was delivered to Braine an hour or two later the editor was quietly reading the "Biglow Papers" to his wife in the little white cottage with the sweet-williams in front. He had half an hour before received a note by messenger, which he crumpled up and threw into the waste basket. A moment later he picked it out again, went into the kitchen and placed it carefully on the fire.

When Hildreth's clerk delivered his summons, Braine quietly said to him:

"Take down my answer in shorthand and deliver it accurately. Tell Mr. Hildreth I am reading a very interesting book to my wife, and don't care to disturb myself. You may say to him, also, that after he has had a talk with Duncan, who is with him now, and Tucker and Fanning, who are to arrive by the express at ten to-morrow morning, I shall be at his service for any conference he may think necessary. Good evening, Charley."

"Why, Ed," exclaimed Helen, as soon as the clerk had gone, "this reading is of no consequence."

"I know it, dear. In fact I'm tired of it and shall read no more."

"Why didn't you go then? It may be of consequence."

"It is—to Hildreth."

"Why did you send him so—well, so curious a message, then?"

"Because I wanted him to know that I knew who was coming and by what trains."

"Didn't you get the information from him?"

"No, dear. He didn't know it himself till he telegraphed for them an hour ago, when we were at tea."

"Then how on earth did you find it out?"

"I pay for my education, dear, as I go on. The little note I burned in the kitchen brought me the information."

"But why did you treat Mr. Hildreth's message so—well, so curtly? I'm sure—"

"My dear, let me tell you a story. There was once a rich man and a poor man. The rich man wanted to make use of the poor man, and he carefully arranged matters so as to make himself the poor man's master. When he had things all ready, he went to the poor man and told him about it. He promised to be a kind master and to pay the poor man well for serving him. But the poor man was constituted a little curiously. He didn't like to have a master, even a kind one who paid him well. He liked to be master himself, and so he carefully arranged matters so as to make himself the rich man's master. When he had matters in readiness, he sent a reply to one of the rich man's orders, which let the rich man know that the poor man was master now. That's a little fable. But fables are often true."