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It was just a loan, you know. I thought you'd need something " "I haven't touched it, Elias. Here it is. Thank you. No, I won't accept it." "I'm sorry," muttered the old man, taking the slip of paper. Graydon resumed his seat near the window and watched Droom with leaden eyes as he turned suddenly to resume charge of the packing. "We'll soon be through," he said shortly.

The occasions were rare when he went so far as to tap on the door. Bansemer was puzzled, and stealthily listened for sounds from the other side. Suddenly, there came to his ears the voices of women, mingled with Broom's suppressed but always raucous tones. Bansemer opened the door; looking into the outer office, he saw Droom swaying before two women, rubbing his hands and smiling.

In leaving New York, he hoped that Ellas Droom who knew too much might refuse to go into the new territory with him, but the gaunt, old clerk took an unnatural and malevolent delight in clinging to his employer.

"Still living over in Wells Street, Mr. Droom?" went on Graydon, thoroughly at home with the man whom he had feared and despised by stages from childhood up. "It's good enough for me," said Droom shortly. ''Tisn't Michigan Avenue, the Drive or Lincoln Park Boulevard, but it's just as swell as I am or ever hope to be."

James Bansemer never forgot the malicious grin that crossed the face of Elias Droom when the young fellow made the proposition not more than a fortnight before the Bansemer establishment picked itself up and hastily deserted New York. That grin spoke plainer than all the words in language. Take him into the office? Make this honest, grey-eyed boy a partner?

"It's for the good of the cause, that's all. It wouldn't do, on Graydon's account, for you to be driven from Chicago at this time. You see, he thinks you are beyond reproach." "Curse your impudence, Droom, I won't be spoken to in that way," exclaimed Bansemer, white with sudden rage and loathing.

Droom agreed that the situation looked unpleasant, and all the more so in view of what Eddie Deever had mentioned in connection with the Marshal's office. He repeated the story as it had come from the babbling, youngster's lips, utterly deceived by the guileless emissary from the office downstairs. "What do you expect to do?" he asked, studying the tense face of his employer.

Forgive me for deserting you " Graydon was saying incoherently when his father lifted his face suddenly, a fierce, horrified look of understanding in the eyes that flashed upon Elias Droom. Even as he clasped his son's hand in the bitterness of small joy, his lips curled into a snarl of fury. Droom's eyes shifted instantly, his uneasy gaze directing itself as usual above the head of its victim.

"He invited me to go to Europe for an indefinite stay. I refused. We'll fight it out, Droom. We have covered our trail better than he thinks. They can't convict me. I'm sure of that. They have nothing but conjectures, and they won't go in court." "I'm afraid of him, just the same. You're bull-headed about it.

Droom?" he asked, deliberately brushing past the old clerk in the outer office. "Left some time ago," replied Droom, somewhat ungraciously, his blue eyes staring past the young man with a steadiness that suggested reproach because he was out of the direct line of vision. "It is nearly six o'clock he's never here after five." "I know that he I asked you if you knew of his whereabouts.