Three months after his entry into Wall Street, Bojo emerged from his bedroom into the communal sitting-room in a state of tense excitement. The day before he had taken his first plunge into the world of speculation and bought a thousand shares of Indiana Smelter on a twenty per cent. margin. This transaction, which represented to his mind the inevitable challenge at the gates of fortune, had left him in a turmoil through all the restless night. He had taken the decision which was to decide his future only after a long wrestling with his conscience.

At first he had imposed a limit, promising himself that he would not touch a penny of his $50,000 capital until he should know of his own knowledge. Gradually this time limit had contracted. Speculation was in the air, triumphant and insidious. The whole market was sweeping up irresistibly. The times were dramatic. Golden opportunity seemed within every one's grasp. Expansion, development, amalgamation were on every tongue. Roscoe Marsh had made a hundred thousand on paper. Even Fred DeLancy had won several turns which had netted him handsome profits.

Bojo had resisted stubbornly at first, turning heedless ears to the excited arguments of his friends, but the fever of speculation had entered his veins, he dreamed of nothing else, and gradually the thought of his $50,000, so modestly invested in four per cent. bonds obsessed him. What was worse was that each time he had refused to follow a tip of Marsh or DeLancy or a dozen new-found friends, he secretly noted down the speculation; and the thought of these dollars he had refused, which could have been his for the asking, rose up before him in a constant reproach. In the end it was Doris who decided him.

That indefatigable schemer, whom even he now called the General Manager, had a dozen times summoned him for an excited consultation on some rumor which she had caught in passage. At first he had laughed her down, then he had stubbornly refused such an alliance. But Doris, undaunted, returned to the charge, amazing him at times with the pertinency of her information, which she picked up from the wives and daughters, from those who came as suitors, or as mere friends of the family, while just as industriously and cleverly she commandeered her acquaintance and sent Bojo a string of customers which had remarkably affected his progress in the brokerage offices of Hauk, Flaspoller and Forshay.

Finally he had yielded, because for weeks he had been longing to yield as a spectator tires of watching inactive the spectacle of the shifting golden combinations on the green cloth of the gambling table. She had information of the most explicit sort. A great combination of Middle Western Smelters had been held up for several weeks by the refusal of two great companies to enter at the price offered—Indiana Smelter and Rockland Foundry. She knew positively that the matter would be adjusted in the next fortnight.

"Did your father say so?" he asked, really impressed, for Drake was reported as directly interested.

"Not in the first place."

"But where did you get your information?"

"Oh, I have my ways," she said, delighted, "and I keep my secrets too. Just remember if you'd taken my advice what you'd have made."

"It is astounding how right you've been," he said doubtfully.

"Listen, Bojo, this is absolutely correct. I know it. I can't tell you now—I promised—but if I could you wouldn't have the slightest doubt. Can't you trust me just this once? Don't you know that I'm working for you? Oh, it's such an opportunity for us both. Listen, if you won't do it, buy five hundred shares for me with my own money. Oh, how can I convince you!"

He looked away thoughtfully; tempted, convinced, suspecting the source of her information, but wishing to remain ignorant.

"You are determined to buy?" She nodded energetically. "What does your father say?"

She seized his idea, saving him the embarrassment of a direct suggestion.

"If Dad says yes, will that convince you? Wait." She thought a moment, pacing up and down, humming brightly to herself. Suddenly she turned, her eyes sparkling with the delight of her own machinations. "I'll tell you how I'll do it. Next week's my birthday. I'll ask him to give me the tip as a birthday present." She clapped her hands gleefully, adding: "I'll tell him it's for my trousseau. If he says all right you won't refuse."

"No, I won't."

She flung herself joyfully into his arms at this victory won, at this prospect opened.

"Bojo, I do love you and I do want to do so much for you!" she cried, tightening her arms about his neck, with more genuine demonstration than she had shown in months.

"After all, I'd be a fool to refuse," he thought, excited too, and aloud he said, "Yes, Miss General Manager."

"Oh, call me anything you like if you'll only let me manage you!" she said, laughing. "Now sit down and let me tell you all I've planned out for you to do."

That night she told him excitedly over the telephone that her little scheme had succeeded, that her father had given his O.K., but of course no one must know. The next day he had bought five hundred shares for her, and after much hesitation a thousand for his own account at 104½. It was a good risk; the stock had been stable for years; even if the combination did not go through, there was little danger of a rapid fall; and if it went up there was a chance at a thirty- or forty-point rise. He kept the injunction of secrecy, as all such injunctions are kept, to the point of telling only his closest friends, Marsh and DeLancy, who bought at once.

Nevertheless, no sooner had the transaction been completed than he had a sudden revulsion. He had been long enough in Wall Street to have heard a hundred tales of the methods of big manipulators. What if Dan Drake's endorsement was only a clever ruse to conceal his real intentions, quits for reimbursing Doris afterward with a check, according to a famous precedent? Perhaps he even suspected that he, Bojo, had put Doris up to it and was taking this method to read him the lesson that his methods were not to be solved along such lines. At any rate, Tom passed a very bad night, saying to himself that he had plunged ahead on the flimsiest sort of evidence and fully deserved a shearing.

A glorious December morning, with a touch of Indian summer, was pouring through the half-opened window, bearing the distant sounds of steam riveters. Marsh was busily culling half a dozen newspapers, while Fred was yawning over the eggs and coffee, when the mail was brought in by the grinning Oriental who had been dubbed Sweeney. DeLancy, who had the curiosity of a girl, pounced upon the letters, slinging half a dozen at Bojo with a grumbled comment.

"Dog ding him if he isn't more popular than me! Important business letters—Mr. Morgan and Mr. Rockefeller asking your advice—society invitations—do honor our humble palace, pink envelope, heavily scented. I say, Bojo, I've gone in deep on your precious stock, two hundred shares—all I could scrape together. Hope you guess right. Anything I hate is work, and 10 per cent. margin ought to be bolstered up by divine revelation."

"Wish the deuce you hadn't," said Bojo, sitting down and opening the formal announcement of his broker's purchase, which struck his eyes like a criminal warrant.

"Cheer up," said Marsh, emerging from the litter of papers. "I've got a tip from another angle, one of the lawyers involved. I'm going in for another couple of thousand shares. Why so glum, Bojo?"

"Wish I hadn't told you fellows."

"Rats; that's all in the game!" said Marsh, but DeLancy did not look so philosophical.

Bojo opened several invitations, a notice from the tailor to call for a fitting, two letters from clients, personal friends, and finally the pink envelope, which was from Doris.

Bojo dear:

Whatever you do don't tell a soul. Dad questioned me terrifically and I told a little fib. How many shares did you buy? Dad made me promise to buy only five hundred, but I know it's all right from the way he acted. Oh, Bojo, I hope you make lots and lots of money! Wouldn't Dad be surprised? He asked me to-night in the funny gruff way he puts on, 'How's that young man of yours getting on? Have they got his hide yet?' Won't it be a joke on him? By the way, I dined with the Morrisons (she's an old school chum of mine) and put in my clever little oar. Don't be surprised if some one else calls you up soon to place a little order. I'm working in another direction too. Don't fail to come up for tea.