tender conscience. Lives in a fanciful atmosphere of noble aspirations and expects all her friends to toe her mark. A little censorious and gets into all sorts of trouble because of it. But she is a good girl, Dunbar, straightgoing and honest."

"I am sure of it," remarked Dunbar. "I deeply respect her."

"You may and not be wrong. I'm going to sell that beast. It won't do for her to drive it now. Though I suppose Kitty will cut up rough about it. She's so deucedly fond of it. You will call and let her thank you, won't you?"

"I'll call, Van Zandt, and would to-night if I had not an engagement on business. But I'll not let her thank me any more."

"Come soon, then," said Van Zandt, rising. "And we'll kill the fatted calf for you-calves in bottles with the corks out."

"Don't go yet, Van Zandt," urged Percy. "I want to talk business with you."

Van Zandt settled himself again with the remark:

"It was not business that I came to you on."

"Oh, I know that. I should have seen you to-morrow morning if you had not happened in. It is about Universal."

"Ninety-four at close."

"Was it, indeed?

You're selling for Ed

gar, are you not?"

Instantly Percy saw embarrassment in the face of Van Zandt, and he said:

"Pardon me! I had forgotten your rule never to discuss a client's business. I should not have asked that question, even if I knew from him, as I do, that he is selling or has sold."

"He is at liberty to discuss his own business," said Van Zandt shortly. "However, I break neither rule nor betray secrets in saying he is out of the market in Universal."

Ah, thought Percy, he has closed out. Aloud he said:

"Will you sell for me?"

"On a margin?”

"No; the shares themselves."

"I thought you had sold largely?" said Van Zandt, surprised.

"Not a share. I think of letting 10,000 go." "That's easy-an easy day's work since Universal is back to 94.'

"Shall we consider it an order, then? I'll send the shares to you to-morrow morning.' "Of course, if you desire it, but is it just the thing to do? You may be severely criticised for doing it.”

"Why more than Edgar?

See here, Van

Zandt, I've got to do this to protect myself.

What the devil Edgar is up to I don't know. You can't always tell by what he says. You never know what he knows. You know how much he has sold. I shan't ask you. But if it is 100,000 shares, he has unloaded, and there's deviltry in the wind. Now, it may be I'll have to buy back at a loss. If I do, all right. With 10,000 sold at 90 even, I am in a way to protect myself."

"You must know your own business, Dunbar. I'm Edgar's broker, that's known. And I've had no instructions yet in a bear campaign. I'll tell you now, so as to be fair and above board, that I don't like the look of things. I've stopped advising my clients to buy Universal. I'm not pounding it; I've just shut up on it. I'll take your order, though I shall not sell it myself. It will be the same

"And you say you can't always tell by what he says," laughed Van Zandt, and with this laugh they parted.

On the broker's departure, Percy plunged into an hour's conference with the chief accountant, in which assets was the chief subject of discussion. At the end he hurried home to dinner and having changed his dress, went out again.

CHAPTER V

UNSOPHISTICATED GRATITUDE

MARK POLLOCK lived on one of the streets stretching out from the east of Prospect Park. When Dunbar left his home after dinner it was to go to the home of the superintendent of the Universal Supplies Company. And yet when he rang the door-bell he hardly knew what was his errand.

Mrs. Pollock came to him to tell him that Mark had gone to the factory, where they were working at night. Dunbar proposed to follow him, but she detained him to say that she had seen him talking to Miss Van Zandt in Eighth Avenue.

"And I see in the paper to-night," she continued, "that you saved Miss Van Zandt's life by stopping her runaway horse."

Though annoyed that the accident had gotten into the newspapers, Dunbar tried to laugh away the idea that Miss Van Zandt's life had been in danger. But the good-natured woman would have none of that. It was quite

evident that she had woven a romance about the affair.

"It's like a novel," she went on, much interested in her idea. "I couldn't help thinking so when I read it. And I told my man Mark that it was. He pooh-poohed it and said it took more than a runaway horse to make a novel. And I said that might be, but the novel comes in when the young man and woman had quarreled and he saved her life, which brought 'em together again."

Dunbar looked up in astonishment.

"My dear Mrs. Pollock," he cried, "where is your imagination leading you to?

of you-
you"

"Oh, I know all about it.

I beg

When we moved

up here last fall I got into the church and me and Miss Van Zandt was in the same church work this spring. So when she came to know Mark was in the Universal, she said she was acquainted or had been with the president. That was you. And when I told her how much we all thought of you, and Mark said you'd been the best friend he'd ever had, she was surprised. Why, she said she'd heard that you had taken great advantage of Mark in some money things and had got property away from Mark and had used Mark very badly. Well then, you ought to have seen me just get up. I told her that it was no such