“Good Heavens!”

“You see,” explained the young man, very earnestly, “I thought that since this was the bank with the greatest deposits, after I had, as it were, accustomed you to this sort of business, it would be less noticeable than if I went elsewhere.”

Mr. Dawson rose.

“This cannot go on. I must know where this gold comes from!” He glared at the young man menacingly. His face had grown pale. Grinnell rose deliberately. He looked at the president so seriously as to produce the impression of a frown, though there was none on his face.

“Mr. Dawson,” he said, in a voice that betrayed displeasure, “as I told you before, I have no intention of disturbing this account. As far as I can see, it will remain here indefinitely. I do not ask you to allow me interest. Should I change my mind, I will give you ample notice. If you wish me to relieve you of this burden, which you appear to regard as excessive, I beg that you will say so, and I shall go elsewhere. I bring this money here because I feel it will be safe. My private affairs, I am sure, can be of no interest to any one. You have but to say the word and we part—the best of friends.”

The president drew in a deep breath.

“I beg a thousand pardons,” he said with an attempt, not over-successful, at contrition. “You may forgive me, but I never shall forgive myself. But are you sure, Mr. Grin-nell, that you can tell me nothing of your—er—fortune? Remember, I have no desire to pry into your private affairs.” He had a way of being polite, as though his very thoughts were punctilious. Wall Street distrusted his self-possession. People who have others completely in their power, and are self-possessed, are too dangerous for comfort.

“Well, Mr. Dawson, the fortune happens to be one of them,” said the young man.

“So, you see, I can only regret that I cannot answer you.”

“I will not press you, Mr. Grinnell. Ah! of course, I would hold in the strictest confidence anything you might see fit to tell me.” He smiled. His smile, often, was that of a diplomat at a reception. His attitudes, the absence of nervous gestures, the poise of his head, all bespoke self-control. But he could not always control his eyes. When he was not sure of his expression he half closed his eyelids, and spoke very gently.

Grinnell shook his head. The president, at a loss for words, held out his hand.

“You’ve forgiven me?” said Grinnell smiling, as in relief.

“Mr. Grinnell,” with a mournful shake of the head, “that is unkind of you.”

“Oh, but I mean it! Good-afternoon, Mr. Dawson.”

The president escorted the young man to the door.

“Good-afternoon, Mr. Grinnell. By the way, are we to expect you again soon?”

“Next week, if I live,” and with a final smile that gave his serious face the indeterminately youthful look of people who have a keen sense of humour, Mr. Grinnell left the Metropolitan National Bank, faithfully “shadowed” by Mr. John Croll, formerly one of Pinkerton’s “star” men and general sleuth.

Croll reported daily to his chief, Edward Costello, who in turn submitted a written report to Mr. Dawson. The young man had gone straight to his house, 193 West 38th Street, a four-story-and-basement brown-stone front, purchased by George K. Grinnell on March 8, 1899, from Mary C. Bryan, widow of Mitchell J. Bryan. He had staid indoors all day. In the evening went out for a walk, accompanied by a fox terrier, and returned at ten o’clock. On the following morning at 8:30, accompanied by the same dog, took a long walk in Central Park; returned at ten. Did not leave the house until five o’clock, when he went to the office of Dr. Coster, the well-known eye-specialist. Returned to his house and took the customary walk in the evening. He lived with his sister, very quietly, according to the domestics of the neighbouring houses. They paid no social calls and received none while under observation. The household supplies were purchased from shops in the vicinity, and paid for always in gold. On Monday, at 10 a. m., two heavy trucks owned by William Watson drove to the house and took each a load of bullion bars, painted black to disguise their nature, and weighing about two hundred and fifty pounds each, which the men brought out through the basement entrance, and carried to the Assay Office. Mr. Grinnell drove in a public hansom behind them, accompanied by a powerfully built man-servant, who lived in Mr. Grinnell’s house. A second trip was made. The daily movements of Mr. and Miss Grinnell, of the two women servants and the body-guard then were given in detail. They revealed absolutely nothing. On Thursdays, it had been learned, Mr. Grinnell went to the Assay Office, shortly after midday, and received a check for the gold bullion deposited on the previous Monday. The clerks there had been requested by Mr. Grinnell not to give any information, but Mr. Grinnell’s name—an undecipherable signature—appeared several times on the register of certificates for the payment of bullion deposits. By crediting him with various amounts instead of one lump sum, no comment was excited, nor had the interest of the newspaper reporters been aroused. But they said at the Assay Office it could not go on unnoticed very much longer, unless Mr. Grinnell took bars instead of checks for his gold. They thought it an unusual case; but the employees of the Federal Government are not supposed to have any imagination during business hours. It is against the rules.

On Thursday Mr. Grinnell sent in his card to Mr. Dawson before calling on the receiving teller. He was admitted at once.

“Good-morning, Mr. Dawson. I have brought you—” he took two bits of paper from his pocket-book, fingered them uncertainly, and finally returned one to his pocket. He went on: “Ten millions.”

“Is that all to-day?” The president not only was not nonplussed, but actually smiled.

He was a great man. Even his enemies acknowledged it.

“That’s all. You see, I’ve been depositing a little every week in the Eastern National Bank. But I’ve decided to increase it to a million a week, and I wanted to ask you if the Dry Goods National also is to be trusted.”

“Great Heavens, man! When are you going to stop? Where is the mine? Can’t I buy stock in it?” The president spoke jocularly. He had, on hearing the young man’s words, determined to solve the mystery if it took fifty thousand dollars. It had ceased to be merely a mystery. It had become a menace. This made him calm.

“I don’t own a share of mining stock. Do you think mines are good investments?” But the young man asked this altogether too innocently.

“Your mine would be.” The president gazed fixedly at the spectacled eyes. Grin-nell hesitated.

“I’ll deposit this, then,” he said. “Good-morning.”

But Mr. Dawson, thinking of disturbing possibilities, did not answer. The young man with his deposits of nineteen and one-half millions—and more to come—troubled the president. With that much cash, Grinnell already was a potential disturber of finance. With much more he could be infinitely worse—to the public and to the great moneyed interests. He could call suddenly upon the bank for his entire account, some day when money was tight, and stock pools needed it as a man’s lungs need air, as a man’s heart needs blood; and the stock-market would be convulsed, and guiltless millionaires suffer. Or, he could mistakenly lend it at such low rates of interest as would “break” the money-market, and help fools or gamblers, but grievously reduce the bank’s profits. Or, he could so misuse it as to foil some stock-market plan of Mr. Dawson’s, or of his associates. There was no limit to the possibilities of mischief from an unknown but even greater supply. Money is a commodity, governed, like all other commodities, by certain conditions. Fancy a man who suddenly announces—and proves it conclusively—that he has an unknown number of millions of bushels of excellent wheat; imagine the effect not only on unfortunate bull gamblers on the Board of Trade, but also on thousands of hard-working farmers. But the young man’s case was far worse. It was not alone his possession of much money; it was his having the gold itself! Money is only money, but gold is more: it is the measure of value. To disturb that was to disturb finance, commerce, and industry. The working-world would cease to labour, cease to breathe. In what would a millionaire’s affluence or a labourer’s poverty be measured; in what would men buy and sell, pay and be paid, if the young man’s supply of gold should be so great as to disturb the value-measure of civilized people? No world-disaster in all history could compare with this!

Dawson’s mind, keen, imaginative, was made feverishly active by the stimulus of fear. Clearly, there was but one thing to do—important, urgent, vital!—to learn all about the young man, and the source and extent of his gold; to make him an ally; to share in that wealth; and, in the meantime, to reduce to a negligible minimum the possibilities for mischief against the bank which that young man and that wealth had created.

The last check for ten millions would not go through the Clearing House but, in order to arouse no suspicions as to the unusually heavy Treasury operations with the New York banks, Mr. Dawson would send the check to the Sub-Treasury and get gold certificates. The amount would be put in as a special deposit. It would not appear in the regular bank statistics, and would be locked up in the vaults, which would keep, for publication, the reserve down and money rates up—a favourite practice of this king manipulator of the money-market—as well as strengthen the bank against Mr. Grinnell, should the young man suddenly decide to withdraw several millions at once. He attended to this and other business details and then sent for Costello.

“I must have the full history of Mr. Grinnell. Don’t come to me without it. It is of the utmost importance. Go to work at once. I’ll see Professor Willetts myself. Drop everything else. Spare no expense and use any means. Understand? Report at once anything you may discover, however trivial.”

Costello was impressed. He had worked, in his life, on cases involving enormous sums, ingenious swindles, thefts and defalcations which had never appeared in the newspapers, the unprintable side of vast financial deals. But never before had he been dazed, as now, by the suppressed excitement of the man, steel-nerved and ice-hearted, who presided over the destinies of the greatest bank of America, of a power so vast that it was scarcely second to that of the Government of the United States.

The bank’s detective staff, the existence of which was unsuspected by the world at large, was marvellously well organized. Mr. Costello’s reports were lengthy. Summarized, they told the president something like this:

George K. Grinnell was under the strictest surveillance, his daily movements being given in detail in the reports of John Croll and William F. Kearney; but they afforded not the slightest clue to the young man’s business. His daily walks in Central Park with his fox terrier—once with his sister—helped the investigation no more than the fact that he spent most of his time indoors. The furniture of the first floor of the house was described at great length by Mr. Kearney who, in the guise of a book agent, memorized it (Report D). Mr. Grinnell had three servants—one man and two maids. Every delivery wagon, and every person that had called at 193 West 38th Street had been shadowed—they were all tradespeople. One wagon was from Wilkins & Cross, the dealers in chemical and laboratory supplies. The driver, John C. Plummer, who was interviewed by Kearney and then by Costello, vouchsafed the information that Mr. Grinnell had a chemical laboratory, and for years had purchased supplies from the firm. Lately the supplies had consisted chiefly of crucibles, charcoal, coke, bone-ash, litharge, adds and other articles used by assayers and refiners. Plummer was promised $250 for a complete transcript of Mr. Grinnell’s purchases from Wilkins & Cross from the first, which he agreed to obtain, and was now at work on. The biographical data, obtained from divers sources, most ingeniously, showed that George Kitchell Grinnell was born in Middletown, New York, on January 1, 1873. His father was Frederick Hobart Grinnell, a druggist, who died in 1898. His mother died in 1889. He had one sister, two and one-half years younger; name Ada. The father left property valued at about $40,000, chiefly real estate in Middletown, New York. So far as friends of the family knew, it was all the property owned by George Kitchell Grinnell and his sister. The rents were collected and remitted to New York by Frederick Kitchell Carpenter, attorney-at-law, a first cousin of Grinnell. By Middle-town people, George K. Grinnell was believed to be an analytical chemist in New York, with a fairly lucrative practice. Grinnell entered the School of Mines, Columbia University, 1891; was graduated in 1895 with the degree of Bachelor of Metallurgy. According to his professors he was a good, but not exceptional student. But had improved with age, one of them said, and was very well up on radium—perhaps better than any one else in America excepting the professor himself. Was popular among his fellow-students, according to some of his classmates; was president of his class in his junior year; was an editor of the Columbia Spectator two years. After leaving college, spent a year in Middletown, in his father’s pharmacy. In October, 1896, came to New York City. Was employed as assayer in the laboratory of Bangs & Wilson, 35 John Street. Left there the following year to return to Middletown, his father being ill. Was considered a competent and careful assayer and analytical chemist. A fellow employee and he were interested in an electrical furnace. But no patent had ever been taken out in either of their names. Remained in Middletown until after his father’s death. In 1898 came back to New York. Lived at Mrs. Scott’s boarding-house, 169 West 48th Street. Purchased the house, 193 West 38th Street, in March, 1899, from Mary C. Bryan. His sister came from Middletown in the fall of 1899. They had lived there quietly ever since. On Monday two trucks—the same he had employed for some weeks—came twice and took bars of gold bullion to the Assay Office. He had deposited to date gold valued at $36,807,988. He had accounts, also, at the Agricultural National and Eastern National Banks, but there nothing was known of his business. His deposits at all these banks had been in the shape of Assay Office checks, and also in Assay Office bars, which made the bank people think he was a mining man.

Professor Willetts could not tell Dawson much. He knew Grinnell as he had known hundreds of other students. He had never heard that Grinnell was wealthy, certainly not wealthy enough to be a worthless student. He remembered having recommended Grinnell to Bangs & Wilson as a good as-sayer. The young man’s graduating thesis had been on electro-metallurgy. He was a pleasant enough chap. The president, on hearing Willetts’s words, felt it wise to say nothing of Grinnell’s enormous gold supply. The less people talked about it the better it might be for the bank, if things did not go right afterward.

On Thursday, shortly after midday, Mr. Grinnell sent in his card to the president. Mr. Dawson greeted him at the door. “Come in, Mr. Grinnell.”

“How do you do, Mr. Dawson?”

“I am worried, Mr. Grinnell. Very much worried.” The president looked it. He always made it a practice of looking the way he said he felt. This time he did not have to act.

“Indeed? I’m very sorry to hear it,” answered Grinnell—with a very good simulation of concern, the president thought.

“You will be sorrier to hear, Mr. Grinnell, that you are the cause of my worry.”

“I?” The astonishment was not so great as a sort of uneasiness, which did not escape the older man.

“Yes, Mr. Grinnell, you. Have you deposited any more—”

“Oh! I can withdraw it, if you don’t care to have it.”

“How much?”

“The same as last week.” Grinnell said it diffidently, uncomfortably, as if he felt guilty of taking undue advantage of the president’s kindness.

“Ten millions?” Mr. Dawson gasped slightly.

“Ye-es, sir,” doubtfully. He evidently would have denied it if he could.

The president took a cigar and contemplated it a long time. A boy entered with a card. The president said sharply: “I can’t see any one.” He threw the unlit cigar on the desk.

The office-boy hesitated; then, with a pale face, said, “It’s Mr. Graves.”

“I’m not in, hang it!” shouted Mr. Dawson, whose voice, habitually, was so carefully modulated. “Go away!”

He arose and walked up and down the room. From time to time he snapped his fingers with a sharp sound. Grinnell looked on uncomfortably. At length Mr. Dawson ceased his walk, picked up his cigar, inserted it, very deliberately, into an amber cigar-holder, and lighted it. He faced the young man and said with composure: “That makes thirty millions of gold in two months.”

“Twenty-nine and a half,” corrected Grinnell, as if in self-defence.

“In round numbers, thirty millions. You have, also, on deposit in other banks, some six or seven more.”

“I—I think,” said Grinnell dubiously, “that it is less than seven. Let me see,” eagerly, as if anxious to show that he was not so black as Mr. Dawson would paint him. “It’s—it’s—”

The president waited.

“It is about seven,” confessed Grinnell regretfully..

“Mr. Grinnell, I don’t know whether you are familiar with finance.” The president spoke quietly, twirling his cigar-holder, and looking at the ashes critically.

“Not very,” hastily apologized the young man.

“You will pardon me for telling you that through ignorance of the responsibilities of your position you can inflict serious injury to the entire business community—injury, Mr. Grinnell, which, reduced to dollars and cents, might be many times thirty millions.”

“I think,” said Grinnell, a trifle dubiously, “that I can see ways in which vast sums of money would do harm if wrongly used.”

“Unwisely used, Mr. Grinnell. And now, in view of this, I should be grateful to you from the bottom of my heart, if you could enlighten me as to how this gold came into your possession.” He looked at the young man anxiously.

“Mr. Dawson,” Grinnell answered, with a determined earnestness, “that is something I must refuse to discuss. I am sorry.”

“Not so sorry as I. But I’d be even more grateful if I could know how much more gold if any, you have, not on deposit with any bank.”

“At this moment?”

“Yes.”

“Well, I can’t tell, exactly.”

“Approximately?”

“Really, I don’t know, Mr. Dawson. I may as well tell you frankly that this subject—”

“Is of great importance to me, sir, as the president of this bank.”

“By withdrawing the account, then, I—”

“You would not help the situation which you have created, Mr. Grinnell. Have you much more gold?”

The young man looked straight into the president’s eyes. He said: “If it will relieve your mind, I can assure you that I have not much more.”

“Everything is relative. What do you consider much?”

“What do you?”

“Say, twenty or thirty millions more.”

“Oh, no! I haven’t thirty millions more.”

“Have you twenty?” persisted the president.

“Twenty?” The young man thought a moment. “No, I haven’t.”

“Ten?”

“I’ll tell you what I’ll do, Mr. Dawson,” the young man said, as if jumping at a decision, “I’ll deposit fifteen millions more in this bank and then I’ll stop. It will give me forty-five millions, and I’ll never bother you again; unless,” he added, almost pleadingly, “you let me.”

The president stared electrically.

“You mean,” he said sharply, “that you can get more?”

“You asked me how much more I had at present and I told you.”

“I beg your pardon; you didn’t tell me exactly. I should have asked how much more in all you expect to have.”

“Mr. Dawson,” ignoring the president’s last words, “it seems to me that if I scatter the deposits among other banks in the city, I can’t do much harm. In fact,” he added, brightly, as if at a new idea, “I could open accounts with banks in Philadelphia, Chicago, Boston, St. Louis, and other cities, where they would not be noticeable. And even in Europe. You could transfer some of the funds I have here to the big cities there, and then I could deposit an equal amount here, so that my account with you would never be above forty-five or fifty millions, and—”

“My God, man! Don’t you know that—” Dawson checked himself abruptly. He went on very quietly. “Am I to understand that your supply is not exhausted?”

“I won’t deposit any more of it here,” said Grinnell conciliatingly.

“How much more is there in the mine?”

“There is no mine,” answered Grinnell. The president felt he spoke the truth.

“Do you make it, then?”

Grinnell laughed. “That would be funny, if you thought I made it.” The condition of the president’s nerves was responsible for the wild thought that lodged in his mind.

“You are a chemist, a metallurgist? And you have studied the phenomena of radium?”

“Yes.” Grinnell looked surprised, but not exactly guilty, the president admitted to himself.

“Have you discovered a method for changing other metals into gold, or for extracting it out of sea-water?”

Grinnell laughed again. “I am glad,” he said, “that you are not worried now.”

“Oh, but I am!”

“Mr. Dawson,” said the young man, once more serious, “I am not such a very rich man as rich men go to-day. You, yourself, if what I read in the newspapers is true, have more than I.”

“I wish I did.”

“So do I. You probably would know how to deposit your money properly. At any rate, I can name a dozen men who have over fifty millions, and—”

“I doubt it.”

“And half a dozen who own over a hundred. The Waldorf family certainly do. Mr. Angus Campbell, of Pittsburg, is said to have three hundred. Your friend, Mr. William Mellen, of the International Distributing Syndicate, is supposed to have five hundred at least. Why should a fortune of even a billion dollars raise a rumpus these days? It was inconceivable a few years ago, but it does not seem out of the way now. I realize perfectly how the sudden increase in the gold supply of this country could produce an inflation that might, in the end, prove highly detrimental to general business. As I understand it, certain financial laws cannot be disturbed with impunity, however praiseworthy the financial law-breaker’s motives may be. But a billion dollars would not make such an awful lot, especially if it should be turned into circulation gradually.”

“It would mean an increase per capita of forty per cent. It would be terrific,” said the president earnestly. “Your argument is utterly unsound unless by ‘gradually’ you mean fifty years.”

“I certainly don’t mean any such thing. Supposing new and enormously rich goldfields were discovered, would that upset the financial equilibrium of the world?”

“It is conceivable that it could easily do so.”

“I think that the world would adjust itself to the new conditions very quickly. Just now, the South African mines are not producing. Suppose that a new source of supply should yield one to two hundred millions a year? Or, five hundred, if it were distributed among all the civilized countries? I’d be the last man to make gold as cheap as pig-iron, I can assure you. But—”

The president’s face was livid. Dark rings had appeared, as by a stage trick, suddenly under his eyes. Wrinkles showed about his nostrils, like those seen in invalids after prolonged pain.

“Mr. Dawson, are you ill?” asked Grin-nell anxiously.

“No, no,” said the president, with a pale smile. “Your views are—er—I mean no offence, Mr. Grinnell, but they show that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.”

“I have been studying this matter for some weeks, Mr. Dawson,” Grinnell said, with a complacency that almost made the president shudder. There was no telling what the young man might not do in his ignorance.

“Pray proceed,” said Mr. Dawson, with an effort.

“As I was saying, I have been depositing gradually—”

“Thirty-seven millions in two months!”

“I have not yet enough money to be classed among the really rich men in this country. But I am young,” with a smile that set a-shivering the gold-enwrapped soul of Mr. Richard Dawson. “I am keenly alive, I think, to the obligations of really great wealth, and I trust to do as much good in the world as I can. I mean to be a very rich man, Mr. Dawson. Of course, I could live comfortably on the income of forty or fifty millions; but I am going to do more than live comfortably. Man owes certain duties to his fellow-men which are neglected too often. Why,” enthusiastically, “the possession of unlimited wealth in worthy hands would mean the realization of the beautiful dreams of those unselfish men whom you, doubtless, call Utopians, and Socialists, and visionaries. They are the men who believe that mankind, at heart, is good. They are the men who will revolutionize the world!”

“Revolutions mean disaster,” said Mr. Dawson half angrily.

“Possibly disaster to a few individuals at first, but, in the end, happiness to the community,” said the young man, with an inspired air.

“It is a question whether the price paid would not be disproportionate to the good obtained.” Mr. Dawson spoke as though he would dissuade the young man, but not too strongly, for fear his words might intensify obstinacy. It was, unwittingly, a subtle admission that he thought the young man did not lack the power to make his dream an actual catastrophe.

“Whatever means the greatest good to the greatest number is necessarily good,” retorted Grinnell, in a tone that permitted no contradiction. “A revolution, Mr. Dawson, is achieved by three things: By time, which is too slow; by blood, which is revolting; and by gold, Mr. Dawson, BY GOLD!”

The young man was looking sternly at Mr. Dawson, who stared back so fixedly as to be painful. On the president’s brow appeared a microscopic dew; you would have said his brain was shedding tears of agony. He had visioned, not the revolution of mankind, but his own ruin!

“Mr. Grinnell,” he said, with a curious, little indrawn gasp, “I can only pray you to go slow. Don’t let your enthusiasm lead you to precipitate an appalling crisis. You can do all the good you wish if you consider carefully all sides of the question. But, as you value the welfare of humanity, go slow, Mr. Grinnell. In God’s name, go slow.”

“Oh, yes!” said Grinnell. “I’m in no hurry. We will discuss these matters from time to time. In the meanwhile,” he took from his pocket-book another check—the same as he had taken out and replaced at the beginning of the interview—“I’ll deposit this additional five and one-half millions, making thirty-five in all, and—”

“Tell me, Mr. Grinnell,” interrupted Mr. Dawson, with a calmness unpleasantly suggestive of desperation, “is your secret known to others?”

“Which secret?”

“The source of your gold?” The intensity of Mr. Dawson’s gaze had in it something ominous.

“No one knows.”

“Ah!” The president drew in his breath sharply. He paused, growing visibly calm, the while.

“If anything happened to you?” he said. He meant his voice to show solicitude. It betrayed merely a strange and not kindly curiosity.

“My sister would know,” answered the young man. “I’ve provided for that, of course. She would continue my plans, with which she is in sympathy, though she does not know the extent of my resources.”

“H’m!”

“If I died suddenly, either from natural causes or as the result of some accident or violence, she would devote her life to carrying out my plans. She is really a remarkable woman. If she too should die suddenly, Mr. Dawson,” looking unflinchingly at the bank president, “my secret and my history would be given to the world. It would make interesting reading; particularly to financiers, Mr. Dawson. I have written full instructions. The average man could not be trusted with such an opportunity to become enormously wealthy, but I have a friend who is above the temptation of sudden riches, who would be my literary executor”—with a faint smile, as at the hidden humour of the phrase—“He is a real socialist. He’d give you trouble, Mr. Dawson. And if he dies, there are three others who would then know the means by which I came to be one of your depositors.”

“And your deposits?”

“If I died before I carried out my plans, what need to worry about this gold? If my sister died, she wouldn’t care what became of it either. I fear, Mr. Dawson,” he finished, very slowly, “that the gold we left behind us would do neither good nor harm to the world.” The president sat down.

“Yours is a remarkable story, Mr. Grin-nell, which I am compelled to believe. I must see you again.”

“Next Thursday?” with a smile.

“Very well. I thank you for your confidence. I beg that you will not speak of your affairs to any one.”

“I’m not likely to. I didn’t expect, when I came here, to tell you as much as I have. Good-morning, Mr. Dawson,” and he walked briskly out of the office.

The president gulped, as though swallowing a dry and obdurate morsel.

“We are undone!” he muttered.

He rose and stood by his desk, supporting himself as though the office floor were unstable and staring unseeingly at a painting on the wall—the portrait of his predecessor. He nodded toward the portrait and muttered drunkenly: “Absolutely at the mercy of one man!”

He nodded again. Then he said to the portrait: “I must see Mellen!”

He blinked his eyes as at a strong light. Of a sudden he pulled himself together, put on his hat, and hastily left the room.

He walked quickly up Wall Street to Broadway, turned southward, and entered the huge home of the International Distributing Syndicate.

“Eighth floor!” he said to the elevator man. The sound of his own voice, husky almost to inaudibleness, startled him.

“Eighth floor,” he repeated, very distinctly.

Walking straight to a door at the end of the hall, marked “Private,” he entered. The burly man at the gate of a railing said: “Good-morning, Mr. Dawson,” and obsequiously opened the gate. But Mr. Dawson made no reply; whereat the burly man wondered, for Mr. Dawson was a polite man.

The president passed, unchallenged, through two rooms, in which clerks worked at desks, and finally confronted the head of the syndicate, who sat at a flat desk. Before him was a sheet on which he had been making calculations with a lead-pencil.

“How do you do, Richard?” said the richest man in the world. He was a middle-aged man, quiet-spoken, brown-eyed; a face quietly alert rather than over-shrewd. His head was curiously shapen, broad above the ears and tapering slightly, though noticeably, at the top. Phrenologists spoke delightedly of the abnormal development of his bump of acquisitiveness, because they knew who he was; and of the absence of the other bumps, for the same irrefutable reason. But the very shape of it conveyed an impression of an unusual brain within it, though, perhaps, people who did not know who he was might not have been so susceptible to the impression. Great leaders seldom look like their imagined portraits.

“William,” said the president of the Metropolitan National Bank, “we are confronted by the greatest crisis in the history of the world!”

Consternation appeared on the face of the richest man in the world, as though it had been flashed upon it by a stereopticon. It was not pleasant to see. His photograph, taken at that moment, would have impressed a stranger as being that of an amateur actor, inartistically expressing dismay—it was so exaggeratedly frightened.

“What has happened, Richard?” he asked tremulously, rising from his chair.

“William,” answered Mr. Dawson, as though he expected unbelief: “listen calmly. Ruin stares us in the face—you, and me, and everybody!”

“What have you done?” cried the richest man in the world.

“Listen. Calm yourself.”

“Are you—ill?”

“Oh, I’m not crazy! If I were, I’d tell you that a man is manufacturing gold at this very minute. And yet, that is what I think.”

“What is the matter, Richard?” There was merely impatience now, in Mr. Mellen’s voice.

“There is a man who has discovered an inexhaustible supply of gold. He will not stop until he has a billion dollars. He is a Socialist—”

“What are you saying?”

“William, the man already has on deposit at the bank thirty-five millions, and he’s been only two months at it. He has at least seven millions on deposit at other banks in this city. We must do something,” and Mr. Richard Dawson told his friend and associate the entire story of Mr. George K. Grin-nell. The richest man in the world listened with his very soul. There was danger of his being no longer the richest man in the world.

“And now,” finished Dawson, “we must think, William. What are we to do?”

“It can’t be true!” frowned Mellen. Then into his eyes came a frightened look. It passed and he said: “Absurd! It can’t be true.”

“It is true. The gold comes from his house, his laboratory.”

“It’s some trick, a plot.” The richest man in the world had imagination, and was partial to schemes. “We must prevent him from going too far,” as though that were the first thing to do before satisfying a merely personal curiosity.

“How?” The president was growing calm. If he was ruined, so was the rest of the world. He did not care for the rest of the world, but the thought braced him.

“Some legal action—”

“Out of the question. There is no ground. Besides, the less publicity the better, William, we are in his power. But nobody knows it, not even he. Therein lies our safety. In the meanwhile we must—” He paused.

“What?”

“It is, obviously, the only step we can take.” There was no one else, in the room, but Mr. Dawson drew near and whispered into his friend’s ear. His friend nodded from time to time.

“That,” said Mellen quietly, with a sort of convictionless acquiescence, as Dawson concluded, “we must not do until we are certain that he can swamp the world with gold!” He picked up the sheet full of lead-pencilled figures and began to tear it into small bits.

“Confound him!” said the president angrily.

“Yes, Richard,” agreed Mellen, with at air that had a suggestion of conscious guilt. He never swore. It was a sin. He was the richest man in the world.