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are brave enough, but, my dear Mrs. Stanford, I would rather protect you from it than urge you to it."

Mrs. Stanford smiled, the color increasing slightly in her face.

"I think there is no doubt of your friendship," she said. "When a man gives it to a woman, his first thought is to shield her."

There were voices heard in the hall.

"Now comes your reward, Mr. Dunbar. I think this is Kitty Van Zandt."

She went forward to meet her friend and Percy was astounded to find that the coming of Kitty was not so important to him as might have been supposed. He stood up, however, prepared to go forward to greet her and was surprised to see that her father, the broker, followed her into the room.

No sooner had Van Zandt perceived Percy than his face flushed and he became visibly embarrassed. His agitation was so marked that it was observed by each one, his daughter being quite alarmed, as her face showed.

Percy went forward with extended hand, but Van Zandt swept his behind his back, saying:

"I can't take your hand, sir, after what has occurred these past two days."

"Oh, father! What can you mean?" cried Kitty.

"Mr. Van Zandt," said Mrs. Stanford, "please remember you are addressing my guest, under my roof."

"I beg, Mrs. Stanford," said Percy, "that you will not consider that I have any rights you must guard. Let Mr. Van Zandt say

what he chooses."

"It is not due to Mr. Dunbar's honor," said Van Zandt, "that I am not a heavy loser through his repudiation of a sale I made for his account."

"I gave you neither authority nor instructions to sell or buy for me."

"I acted on Mr. Edgar's instructions." "He had no authority from me, nor had there been a word exchanged between us on the subject. You have no cause for complaint."

"And you have sold us out in the most treacherous manner. Leaving us to believe that you were with us, as you were bound to be in all honor, you deliberately cut the ground from under our feet by going over to the enemy and destroying our plans.”

Percy was very stiff and cold as he replied: "People may and do differ in their estimate of my act. The reputable element of Wall Street, I think, however, are inclined to believe that I very properly protected myself against the designs of an unprincipled man

named Edgar, whose instrument you have been."

Mrs. Stanford attempted to speak, but Percy interrupted:

"Please, my dear lady, say nothing. It is not worth it. This disagreeable contretemps is not of your making, nor are you in any way responsible for it. Please accept my apologies for the part I have borne in it and permit me to relieve your embarrassment by retiring."

He bowed to Kitty, who, bewildered, did not respond, to Mrs. Stanford, and passed out of the room. Mrs. Stanford, however, followed him hastily, and, in the hall, he was enabled to say to her alone:

"This is best. It could not be bettered by my remaining, even if Van Zandt were to leave, for there is Kitty, your friend. And above all, do not discover your own relations to Edgar. I'll see you soon under pleasanter auspices."

He left the house.

CHAPTER XIII

IN THE OPEN IN DEFENSE

THE next morning the papers were full of the coup of the Cohen-Raab interest in securing the control of the Universal.

By some of the papers the coup was regarded as an evidence of the superior strategy of the great banking interest, but in the main the allegation was that the triumph over the Edgar party had been secured only through the perfidy and bad faith of the president of the Universal, whose loyalty had been relied upon by those whom he betrayed. One paper was especially bitter, and, devoting no little space to the uprise of J. Percival Dunbar, declared he was a pupil of C. C. Edgar, for whose aptness for stock manipulation there was more to be said than for his honor and gratitude. And it was insinuated that the triumphant party would find it possessed a fabric the timbers of which were rotten.

There was much condemnation of the tactics and practices of Wall Street revealed in

the incident and gossip and speculation as to the future of the great industrial, as it was called. All were agreed that the bear campaign was checked, and there were predictions of a rush of the shorts to cover at the first opportunity.

Joe Hackett went in early to ask Percy if he had a reply to make to the assaults upon him and found the president of the Universal in a sarcastic mood.

"Merely say for me, Joe," he said, "that reading the morning papers with a great deal of personal interest, I am astonished to learn what a great and bad man I am. That knowledge, however, mitigates the pleasure I might otherwise have derived from the discovery that I am a wonderful manipulator of the stock market, and a marvelous financier. It may not be a matter of moment to a listening world, but you can say, and with truth, that I never bought a share of stock or sold one on a margin; that my sole transactions in the stock market were, when frightened out of my wits, ten days ago, that I sold my stock in Universal at the then prevailing market rates, and, that yesterday, recovering my senses, and, perceiving my opportunity, I bought it back at the then prevailing market rates; and more than I had sold. If that be treason to C. C. Edgar-well, you recollect what Patrick

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