Destiny

ving penetrated a die with which Giants have been casting lots. The first impression is one of cubical dimensions-an

gallery on every promise of a quiet day. Here in Money's cardinal nerve-center there had been inevitable rumblings of future eruptions from pent

hysteria. Meanwhile well-groomed young men in pongee office coats and their equally sleek elders killed time with newspapers or resumed threads of conversation broken off at parting last night in drawing-room or theater-foyer. The circular benches around the posts blossomed with magazines and a group formed about two brokers who gravely fought out chess problems on a pocket board. Noise of a sort there was, for on the floor of the Exchange a "quiet" day is not as a quiet day elsewhere. Unimportant bids and sales elicited sporadic shouts and clamor, but for the most part these demonstrations were

y whispered itself about the floor. Magnet-wise it drew men from scattered points into focal

lderly gentleman as he tugged at his closely cropped mustache with a n

Burton is out in war paint

of two years ago and mopped up enough to double his fortune. House after house went to

rvously from a thin man who chewed at a pencil. About his i

's nothing ambiguous about his wallops. I hoped

edge of the crowd and glared-but his hatred was for Hamilton Burton. "Sadisfied-not till der

he heeds no laws. He's the most brilliant brigand in the Street-and every hand is against him. He's alwa

es of pessimists and disquiet mounte

like it, for in all but its processes of business this

down on the great wall blackboards and a white number flashes into sight. It stands for a while, then twinkles again into blackness, but in the meantime it h

d vanishing numerals and men hurried to the booths where wires linked the

ar raid. Watch him. Send word of his firs

s grew hoarse. The restrained anxiety had swept into an open furore of fear. It looked as if the bottom were dropping out of Coal Tar Products. At once a doz

s were several other portraits of the emperor. Busts in bronze and marble gazed down with those same inscrutable eyes. One important likeness was missi

the musing face turned with the i

ounced the young man. "Mr. Malone wants to

irritably-"that if he wants to find me I will b

d in momentary embarr

that I mean J. J. M

f finance, Carl, I didn't know

ehind him, there was in the world of finance only one

bow followed the slight wiry figure of a companion with nervous eyes, and a cigar which was always chewed and never lighted. This man had come, as Ham had come, from the hardness of some barren farm and had obdurately hammered his path by the sheer insistence of his brain into

rton. Most men come to

t was merely the assurance of invincible self-faith, and for an instant the man who had n

ing any small or timid man must have shriveled. The eyes that shone out under the heavy l

re his sixty-five years as lightly as foliage, standing straight and strong like a poplar tree, save as he bent to the gusts of his own passion. Where his clenched fist fell upon desk or table the furniture trembled. Through the frosted

veled here, there, everywhere. On casual glance one might have overlooked him as negligible, thereby falling gravely into error. The giant and the slight man had this kinshi

e of his uncompromising arrogance. Perhaps it accorded with his whim to chill his words with icy insolenc

like a drunken and abusive pirate. If you have nothing for temperate discussion, I will now say good-day to you. Take with you the honors of war, sir.

d composure, but an ominous undernote of threat. "Let's have done with pretense. In so far as any individuals can make or break-we can. When you came, an unlicked cub, into the world of l

calm. "You say I came to you. Many men have come

did

at your directorates only because you were compelled to recognize my value there. You lifted me from the ranks to the general staff of finance because of unescapable conviction that I

r, slenderer and more pliant of pose; his eyes meeting those of his protagonist, level and unwavering. "Grant that all your self-adulation is warrantable. Now that you have attained this place in the councils of the few, do you mean to become only a wrecker and

to encounter in actual life so humorous a situation." Then the mouth line grew set again and the voice hardened. "Well, I make you no pledges. I say to you, to hell with the laws you draw for your

dip over the East River. He shifted the cigar to the other side of his mouth and across his g

hy

d me. We are playing the same game and it's no child's kissing game. When you have both the wish and power to crush me, I shall expec

r custom to be uninformed." It was Malone who spo

ater Coal Tars broke and there is a flurry-a pa

rton's fingers had fallen on a small bronze paper-weight. It was an eagle with

ry attack and to move by stealth. You know that just now such a flurry may precipitate a general panic that will shake and waste the nation like a fever

t it was Burt

en, bent on stemming a tide of disaster, spent much time

ay, the pillars of public confidence may be seriously shaken. By two o'clock this afternoon the president's gavel will be falling to announce failures. The disaster that we have feared will come. In the end we shall beat you, but all of us will

rgument for peace." He paused and then laughed. "Go hack to your respective sanctums of righteousness and plunder and you will see that this tide will soon turn. It is not in my plans that this day shall go down in Exchange history as a bear day. When I resolve on tha

for Carl Bristoll and smiling

chickens when a hawk hovers overhead." Then he recounted what had occurred-for this was one of the matters in which the secretary might be admitted to his confidence. At the end of the recital Carl shook his hea

Burton

til I have fattened them. When the day comes, be assured they won't call me off, but until I am ready I don't strike." He took

l incense they burn to my power, bu

s welcome, the banker found himself in a pensive mood. The last evening of the voyage was being celebrated with a dance on dec

he looked forward at home was a meeting with Mary Burton, and with the thought that tomorrow morning would bring the sky-line of Manhattan into view, a decided misgiving possessed him. He had heretofore treated the thing half-humorously-as a pleasant, but vague, dream. It could no longer remain so. He realized that it had been a definite enough dream to keep the door of his heart closed upon other women. He must see her and if, after seeing her, his dream could no longer exist he knew that it would be to him and his life a serious matter. A chance acquaintance of the

e name in large affairs would occupy him with strenuous activities. The house of Edwardes and Edwardes stood as a pillar of c

lar figures as Hamilton Burton, there was in the older days a different conception of

. A deep pride in the honor upon which they had based their upbuilding had actuated them, and in none of the line