you expect me to do with two old maids as set in their ways as the Palisades. It's all dumb nonsense, anyhow."
Druce remained silent. After an irksome pause the hapless General floundered on—
"As I said at first, women have their world, and we have ours. Now, Druce, you're a man of solid common sense. What would you think if Mrs. Ed. were to come here and insist on your buying Wabash stock when you wanted to load up with Lake Shore? Look how absurd that would be. Very well, then; we have no more right to interfere with the women than they have to interfere with us."
"If my little girl wanted the whole Wabash System I'd buy it for her to-morrow," said Druce, with rising anger.
"Lord! what a slump that would make in the market!" cried the General, his feeling of discomfort being momentarily overcome by the magnificence of Druce's suggestion. "However, all this doesn't need to make any difference in our friendship. If I can be of any assistance financially I shall only be too——"
"Oh, I need your financial assistance!" sneered Druce. He took his defeat badly. However, in a minute or two, he pulled himself together and seemed to shake off his trouble.
"What nonsense I am talking," he said when he had obtained control of himself. "We all need assistance now and then, and none of us know when we may need it badly. In fact, there is a little deal I intended to speak to you about to-day, but this confounded business drove it out of my mind. How much Gilt Edged security have you in your safe?"
"About three millions' worth," replied the General, brightening up, now that they were off the thin ice.
"That will be enough for me if we can make a dicker. Suppose we adjourn to your office. This is too public a place for a talk."
They went out together.
"So there is no ill-feeling?" said the General, as Druce arose to go with the securities in his handbag.
"No. But we'll stick strictly to business after this, and leave social questions alone. By the way, to show that there is no ill-feeling, will you come with me for a blow on the sea? Suppose we say Friday. I have just telegraphed for my yacht, and she will leave Newport to-night. I'll have some good champagne on board."
"I thought sailors imagined Friday was an unlucky day!"
"My sailors don't. Will eight o'clock be too early for you? Twenty- third Street wharf."
The General hesitated. Druce was wonderfully friendly all of a sudden, and he knew enough of him to be just a trifle suspicious. But when he recollected that Druce himself was going, he said, "Where could a telegram reach us, if it were necessary to telegraph? The market is a trifle shaky, and I don't like being out of town all day."
"The fact that we are both on the yacht will steady the market. But we can drop in at Long Branch and receive despatches if you think it necessary."
"All right," said the General, much relieved. "I'll meet you at Twenty- third Street at eight o'clock Friday morning, then."
Druce's yacht, the Seahound, was a magnificent steamer, almost as large as an Atlantic liner. It was currently believed in New York that Druce kept her for the sole purpose of being able to escape in her, should an exasperated country ever rise in its might and demand his blood. It was rumoured that the Seahound was ballasted with bars of solid gold and provisioned for a two years' cruise. Mr. Buller, however, claimed that the tendency of nature was to revert to original conditions, and that some fine morning Druce would hoist the black flag, sail away, and become a real pirate.
The great speculator, in a very nautical suit, was waiting for the General when he drove up, and, the moment he came aboard, lines were cast off and the Seahound steamed slowly down the bay. The morning was rather thick, so they were obliged to move cautiously, and before they reached the bar the fog came down so densely that they had to stop, while bell rang and whistle blew. They were held there until it was nearly eleven o'clock, but time passed quickly, for there were all the morning papers to read, neither of the men having had an opportunity to look at them before leaving the city.
As the fog cleared away and the engines began to move, the captain sent down and asked Mr. Druce if he would come on deck for a moment. The captain was a shrewd man, and understood his employer.
"There's a tug making for us, sir, signalling us to stop. Shall we stop?"
Old Druce rubbed his chin thoughtfully, and looked over the stern of the yacht. He saw a tug, with a banner of black smoke, tearing after them, heaping up a ridge of white foam ahead of her. Some flags fluttered from the single mast in front, and she shattered the air with short hoarse shrieks of the whistle.
"Can she overtake us?"
The captain smiled. "Nothing in the harbour can overtake us, sir."
"Very well. Full steam ahead. Don't answer the signals. You did not happen to see them, you know!"
"Quite so, sir," replied the captain, going forward.
Although the motion of the Seahound's engines could hardly be felt, the tug, in spite of all her efforts, did not seem to be gaining. When the yacht put on her speed the little steamer gradually fell farther and farther behind, and at last gave up the hopeless chase. When well out at sea something went wrong with the engines, and there was a second delay of some hours. A stop at Long Branch was therefore out of the question.
"I told you Friday was an unlucky day," said the General.
It was eight o'clock that evening before the Seahound stood off from the Twenty-third Street wharf.
"I'll have to put you ashore in a small boat," said Druce: "you won't mind that, I hope. The captain is so uncertain about the engines that he doesn't want to go nearer land."
"Oh, I don't mind in the least. Good-night. I've had a lovely day."
"I'm glad you enjoyed it. We will take another trip together some time, when I hope so many things won't happen as happened to-day."
The General saw that his carriage was waiting for him, but the waning light did not permit him to recognise his son until he was up on dry land once more. The look on his son's face appalled the old man.
"My God! John, what has happened?"
"Everything's happened. Where are the securities that were in the safe?"
"Oh, they're all right," said his father, a feeling of relief coming over him. Then the thought flashed through his mind: How did John know they were not in the safe? Sneed kept a tight rein on his affairs, and no one but himself knew the combination that would open the safe.
"How did you know that the securities were not there?"
"Because I had the safe blown open at one o'clock to-day."
"Blown open! For Heaven's sake, why?"
"Step into the carriage, and I'll tell you on the way home. The bottom dropped out of everything. All the Sneed stocks went down with a run. We sent a tug after you, but that old devil had you tight. If I could have got at the bonds, I think I could have stopped the run. The situation might have been saved up to one o'clock, but after that, when the Street saw we were doing nothing, all creation couldn't have stopped it. Where are the bonds?"
"I sold them to Druce."
"What did you get? Cash?"
"I took his cheque on the Trust National Bank."
"Did you cash it? Did you cash it?" cried the young man. "And if you did, where is the money?"
"Druce asked me as a favour not to present the cheque until to-morrow."
The young man made a gesture of despair.
"The Trust National went to smash to-day at two. We are paupers, father; we haven't a cent left out of the wreck. That cheque business is so evidently a fraud that—but what's the use of talking. Old Druce has the money, and he can buy all the law he wants in New York. God! I'd like to have a seven seconds' interview with him with a loaded seven-shooter in my hand! We'd see how