THE CASH 
 INTRIGUE 
 
 
 . 
 
 GEORGE 
 ANBOLPH
 
 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 OE CALIF. LIBRARY, LOS ANGELEg
 
 " Tell me what I should do," said Elsie
 
 THE 
 
 CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 A Fantastic Melodrama of Modern Finance 
 
 BY 
 
 GEORGE RANDOLPH CHESTER 
 
 Author of 
 THE MAKING OF BOBBY BURNIT 
 
 WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
 
 M. LEONE BR ACKER 
 
 INDIANAPOLIS 
 
 THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY 
 PUBLISHERS
 
 COPYRIGHT 1909 
 THE BOBBS-MERRII.L COMPANY 
 
 PRESS OP 
 
 BRAUNWORTH <fc CO. 
 
 BOOKBINDERS AND PRINTERS 
 
 BROOKLYN, N. Y.
 
 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 2128608
 
 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 WHEREIN PHILLIP KELVIN VISITS WALL STREET 
 WITH UNASSAILABLE CREDENTIALS 
 
 IT was shortly after nine o clock when a brisk 
 young man stepped out of a taxicab into the 
 dim crevice of Broad Street, followed by a 
 huge negro bearing a suit-case. The young man 
 was evidently a complete stranger in the locality, 
 for he looked about him with frank curiosity, paus 
 ing for a moment to wonder at the daily farce of 
 the curb-market before turning in at the doorway 
 of a narrow stair. Nestled back amid a number 
 of alleged brokers, who dealt hilariously in such 
 " securities " as Wireless Motor Preferred, he 
 found the offices of Henry Galleon and Company, 
 one of the few legitimate firms which, entrenched in 
 their own natural conservativeness, had refused 
 to move when the curb invasion came. Passing 
 through the outer office, where a gray-haired " boy " 
 
 I
 
 2 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 would soon begin to post ticker quotations on a 
 small blackboard for the benefit of a scant score of 
 antiquated and empty arm-chairs, he entered the ad 
 joining room, where, behind corroded iron grilles, 
 a row of elderly clerks worked quietly over ponder 
 ous books. At the end of the narrow lane in front 
 of these desks was a small door marked simply " Of 
 fices," beyond which door a wizened man, bent with 
 years but still active, looked up from a battered 
 and scratched walnut desk as ancient as he, waiting 
 silently for the square-jawed visitor to introduce 
 himself. 
 
 " Mr. Galleon? " inquired the new-comer. 
 
 " Upon what business, please ? " asked the other 
 mechanically. 
 
 " I only care to talk with Mr. Galleon himself." 
 Very pleasant about it indeed, but the chin, though 
 it had a dimple in it, stuck out most aggressively. 
 
 The old man arose with a slight, protesting frown, 
 asked for a card, and took it into an inner room. 
 
 Henry Galleon was about the same age as his 
 secretary, but he was erect. His face and his bald 
 head were pink with a baby s pinkness, his white 
 hair glistened like silk, and the brightness of his 
 eyes was almost infantile. He looked up from the 
 card inquiringly. 
 
 "Phillip Kelvin?" he said. ".Who s Phillip 
 Kelvin? I never heard of him."
 
 PHILLIP VISITS WALL STREET 3 
 
 " I don t know," replied the secretary. " He s 
 a very capable-looking young man, and by no means 
 a New-Yorker, I should think. He has a tremen 
 dously large negro with him; the largest one I ever 
 saw. The negro is carrying a big suit-case." 
 
 Henry Galleon pondered that matter quietly, 
 smoothing his chin with the thumb and fingers of 
 one hand, after the unbreakable habit of a man 
 who has once worn a beard. Fanatics with bombs 
 had menaced the Wall Street district of late, and 
 they might come in any guise. 
 
 " Find out his business, Messmer," was the sane 
 conclusion. 
 
 " I did ask, but he insisted on seeing you 
 personally." 
 
 Galleon frowned. "If he can t explain properly 
 to you, let him go. You are authorized to transact 
 all necessary business in my name." 
 
 Messmer went out with that message, though he 
 softened it somewhat. Young Kelvin had evidently 
 expected such an answer, for he smiled and turned 
 to the negro. 
 
 " Here, Sam," he directed, " put the case on this 
 desk." 
 
 The staid and evenly balanced Messmer frowned 
 as the suit-case was slammed upon the top of his 
 tangle of papers, but he waited with some curiosity 
 while young Kelvin unlocked it. Messmer had half
 
 4 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 expected to see a set of books or a sample of some 
 new office contrivance, but when the lid was thrown 
 back he was struck dumb by the surprising con 
 tents of that unpretentious bit of luggage. 
 
 * These," said young Kelvin smilingly, running 
 his hand down in the suit-case and fluttering 
 the edges of its contents, " these are my letters 
 of introduction. Kindly tell Mr. Galleon about 
 them, and that I will not talk to any one but him 
 self." 
 
 " Yes, sir ! " said Messmer with surprising alac 
 rity. "Yes, sir; yes, sir!" 
 
 He was positively white and trembling when he 
 went back into Galleon s office. He was rubbing 
 his hands together nervously, and his tottering foot 
 steps had become a double-quick shuffle. 
 
 " That suit-case ! " he gasped. " The young man 
 has just opened it, and it is full to the top with 
 nothing but money!" 
 
 " Money ? " expostulated Mr. Galleon. 
 
 "Money, sir, money!" repeated Messmer; 
 " paper money, all of high denomination. Solid 
 packages of bills! He said that these were his let 
 ters of reference, and that he would talk business 
 with no one but you." 
 
 Mr. Galleon turned upon old Messmer per 
 emptorily. " Why don t you show the young 
 gentleman in?" he demanded.
 
 PHILLIP VISITS WALL STREET 5 
 
 He inspected young Kelvin sharply as Phillip 
 came into the room, and found him to be a well- 
 dressed, clean-looking chap, with an extremely clear 
 eye and an extremely healthy complexion, his fair 
 ness and his lithe slenderness being made all the 
 more striking by contrast with the gigantic Sam, 
 a perfect Hercules, whose almost jet-black face 
 was scarred with a deep cut upon his left cheek, 
 and the lobe of whose right ear had been neatly 
 sliced away. 
 
 " Your letters of recommendation are perfectly 
 satisfactory, Mr. Kelvin," said the broker smiling, 
 as he glanced down at the card again to make sure 
 of the name. " What can we do for you ? " 
 
 For answer young Kelvin opened the suit-case 
 and took from it eight packages of bills, which he 
 counted over carefully. " Here are two hundred 
 thousand dollars," said he. " I wish you to sell 
 for me one thousand shares each of these four 
 stocks." He laid a slip of paper upon Mr. Gal 
 leon s desk. The broker did not look at the mem 
 orandum at once; he looked first at the packages 
 of bills, and then at the suit-case. He made a 
 hasty calculation, and then hesitated. If those eight 
 packages contained two hundred thousand dollars, 
 and the rest of the packages were composed of bills 
 of similar denomination, that suit-case must con 
 tain not less than two million dollars, cash !
 
 6 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " Of course, Mr. Kelvin, it is none of my af 
 fair," he began hesitantly, " but it is positively crim 
 inal of you to be carrying that enormous amount 
 of currency about with you. It ought to be banked. 
 You must consider," and he smiled again, " that I 
 would just as soon have your check as this money; 
 in fact, much rather." 
 
 " It is one of the strict conditions of my dealing 
 with you that our operations are to be transacted 
 in currency. I shall neither give nor receive 
 checks." 
 
 " But it is dangerous," insisted Mr. Galleon. 
 
 Phillip smiled. " Ordinarily, yes," he admitted, 
 " but in the present juncture I consider banks much 
 more dangerous. Have you a good deposit vault ? " 
 
 " I have deposit boxes in the best vaults in town." 
 This a little stiffly. 
 
 " Then I must insist that you keep this cash under 
 your own lock and key. Use no more than twenty 
 dollars per share for initial margins, and hold the 
 balance in reserve." 
 
 Galleon frowned and shook his head. " It is an 
 absurd thing to do, especially now," he protested. 
 " There prevails, at present, a peculiar condition 
 which you may not understand, Mr. Kelvin ; it even 
 puzzles old members of the Street. While the mar 
 ket is sluggish, money is very tight, a most rare 
 and unusual state of affairs. It would be folly to
 
 PHILLIP VISITS WALL STREET 7 
 
 let this amount of cash lie idle when it could com 
 mand such an unusual rate." 
 
 " Do you wish to handle my deals or not? " and 
 young Kelvin s jaws came shut with a snap. 
 
 Galleon studied the matter over in silence for a 
 while. " How does it happen that you come to 
 me?" he asked. 
 
 " That is very simple," replied Kelvin with a 
 smile. " From perfectly authentic sources I se 
 cured a list of all the Board of Trade members in 
 New York who do absolutely no bucketing and no 
 trading upon their own account; and you happened 
 to head that list." 
 
 Henry Galleon bent forward eagerly. "How, 
 many are there ? " he asked. 
 
 " Less than would have saved Sodom and 
 Gomorrah. There are just five, and I was given 
 a doubt concerning one of those." 
 
 Chuckling to himself, Henry Galleon began 
 counting the money. He touched a button and 
 there stepped energetically into the room, from a 
 rear door, a young fellow of broad shoulders and 
 bronzed face, who was the personification of cheer 
 ful good-humor. There was a certain careless ease 
 in the very flow of his cravat which told of a happy- 
 go-lucky disposition, and superabundant health was 
 visible in every line of his figure. 
 
 Galleon pushed forward the slip of paper which
 
 8 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Kelvin had just given him. " Selling orders for 
 the first thing this morning, at the market," he 
 explained. 
 
 The young man paid no attention to the slip. 
 " Why, hello, Phill ! " he exclaimed, and rushing 
 across to young Kelvin, he grasped that gentleman 
 by the right hand and pounded him vigorously upon 
 the shoulder with his left. " It s been an age since 
 I saw you, old boy ! " he roared with delight. 
 " Where did you drop in from ? " 
 
 " Tennessee," replied Kelvin. " By George, 
 you re looking well, Rensselaer. I m as much sur 
 prised to see you here, so far away from the 
 mavericks and the rustlers, as you are to see me." 
 
 " Oh, I m not in such a different occupation from 
 cow-punching," laughed Rensselaer. " I m Mr. 
 Galleon s floor-member over on the Exchange, and 
 it s much the same sort of exercise. Where are you 
 stopping? " 
 
 " At the Esplanade. What time do you get 
 through work?" 
 
 " A little after three." 
 
 " Come up to see me," invited Kelvin. " I ll be 
 in all day." 
 
 " I sure will ! " declared Rensselaer. " Then 
 we ll go out and see if we can t get some canned 
 tomatoes. Do you remember how we used to go 
 down to Abe Turner s store at Greaser Gulch and
 
 PHILLIP VISITS WALL STREET 9 
 
 buy canned fruit and spear it out with a jack- 
 knife?" 
 
 " I don t think I shall ever forget it," laughed 
 Kelvin. " I never want to. However, I think we 
 can find something better than jerked beef at the 
 Esplanade. I ll wait for you with a great deal of 
 pleasure." 
 
 As soon as he had gone, Galleon turned eagerly 
 to young Rensselaer. ".Who was that?" he de 
 manded. 
 
 " Phill Kelvin. I used to know him on a Mon 
 tana ranch when we were cow-punching together, 
 five or six years ago." 
 
 "Was he there for his health?" asked Galleon. 
 
 " I don t think so," replied Rensselaer with a 
 chuckle. " As I remember him he had too much 
 health, if anything; but that was about all he pos 
 sessed. I bunked with him for six months, and 
 there never was a finer fellow on earth so long 
 as he had his own way." 
 
 " He looks like that," said Galleon, smiling. 
 
 " Only more so," returned Rensselaer. " Out 
 there he was bull-headed about everything he 
 started after little things or big ones. If he once 
 set his head to get something or to do something, 
 even the boss side-tracked." 
 
 " Huh! " grunted Galleon. " Where did he get 
 his money ? " ;
 
 io THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " I didn t know he had any," returned Rensselaer 
 in surprise. 
 
 " Look here." 
 
 Rensselaer stepped around to where he could see 
 inside of his employer s desk, and Galleon, with his 
 thumb, fluttered the edges of the packages of money 
 that lay there. 
 
 "He just left this here; two hundred thousand 
 dollars, to margin those four thousand shares of 
 stock fifty points. Did you see that suit-case he 
 had? Stuffed full of greenbacks! There couldn t 
 have been less than two million dollars in it ! " 
 
 Rensselaer whistled, and they were both silent for 
 a little while. 
 
 " .Well," Rensselaer finally observed, " however 
 he got it, he didn t steal it. More power to him. 
 I hope he digs up two million more." He paused 
 a moment and then chuckled. " Kelvin used to 
 have some queer ideas," he went on. " He used to 
 tell me about them, lying awake at night in camp, 
 or when we were loafing around down in the val 
 leys where the long grass grows. I could never 
 make out just whether he really meant it, or if he 
 was doing a lot of dry kidding. He could do that, 
 you know, without ever cracking a smile. My am 
 bition, at that time, was to become a great general, 
 but his loco point was that a republican form of 
 government was bound to fail. Said he was crazy
 
 PHILLIP VISITS WALL STREET n 
 
 for power, and that the way to get it was to secure 
 control of all the money in the United States. 
 With that he could do anything overthrow the 
 government, make himself emperor, correct all the 
 abuses in the world. He promised me my general 
 ship, when the time came. Funny jumble of stuff, 
 but sometimes it sounded reasonable, too." 
 
 Old Henry Galleon whistled softly to himself, a 
 homely tune of long ago, and tapped the pile of 
 money with his lead-pencil. " He s got hold of so 
 much of the money he was after that he ll forget 
 the rest of the program," he sagely observed.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 TWO LADIES ADDRESS NOTES TO THE YOUNG MAN 
 OF READY CASH 
 
 FOUR other brokerage firms young Kelvin 
 visited, and with each one he concluded an 
 arrangement precisely like that entered into 
 with Galleon, except that at each office he left a 
 different list of stocks to be sold on a twenty point 
 margin, backed up by fifty dollars cash per share; 
 then, with Sam s suit-case half empty, he directed 
 his chauffeur to drive back up Broadway to the 
 Esplanade. Upon that marvelous thoroughfare he 
 looked about him with the frank curiosity which 
 marks the wondering stranger. He was a part of 
 a swiftly moving triple procession on the right- 
 hand side of the street, a conglomeration of trolley- 
 cars and power-driven vehicles of every description; 
 and upon the opposite side a similar procession 
 flashed by him in endless array, each car at the 
 service of a restless, dominating human force. 
 These were the kings of the world, these men in 
 auto-conveyances, each king struggling, with all his 
 vital power, to conquer other kingdoms. It was 
 
 12
 
 TWO LADIES ADDRESS NOTES 13 
 
 wonderful, this mighty spectacle of realized and 
 realizing ambition, and Phillip drank in the spirit 
 of it with an exhilaration that was almost an 
 intoxication. 
 
 " Only fifteen years, Sam," he said, turning to 
 the negro, " and see what has been done. This is 
 the most wonderful city in the world." 
 
 " Yes, sah," replied Sam, looking briefly from the 
 suit-case between his feet, and immediately concen 
 trating his gaze upon it again. 
 
 Kelvin laughed. " Nothing so wonderful to you 
 as that suit-case, is there, Sam? " 
 
 " No, sah," agreed Sam, permitting himself a 
 slight grin, which, however, was so fleeting that it 
 scarcely detracted from the serious preoccupation 
 of his face. " Ah done reckon tha s about all the 
 money in the worl ! " 
 
 " Not quite," dissented Kelvin with a smile, then 
 turned again to study the changes time had wrought. 
 " It is marvelous," he presently resumed, talking 
 more to himself than to the negro. " When I was 
 here fifteen years ago I could not appreciate what 
 all this meant, but now I know that this street is the 
 concentrated nervous energy of America gone mad 
 in the race for supremacy. I guess you didn t 
 think you d see anything like this, Sam, when I 
 saved you from the mob in the Tennessee woods? " 
 
 Sam shuddered. " Deed Ah didn t," he ad-
 
 I 4 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 mitted. " Mistah Phillip, Ah ll neveh fohget that 
 as long as Ah live. Mah life was plum gone, boss. 
 Ah suah would been han led like they done the right 
 man when they-all got im, ef yo hadn t come along 
 in yo automobile. Mah life belongs to yo , boss. 
 Yo kin yo kin kill me jes any time yo git 
 good an ready, cause Ah done live now three 
 yeahs longeh than mah time, 1 
 
 " They ve been fairly happy years for both of us, 
 Sam," said Phillip ; " but now we really begin to 
 live." He mused a while longer, then, going back 
 to his original thought, added with a curious smile : 
 " It is strange to me that, with all these advance 
 ments in science, business and politics have not ad 
 vanced one whit, except along the line of their 
 logical ends. The same antiquated methods are 
 used that were in vogue fifty years ago. I guess 
 that, after all, those are the two most conservative 
 institutions in the world. Eh, Sam ? " 
 
 " Yes, sah," Sam again readily agreed, where 
 upon Phillip laughed heartily. 
 
 Arrived at Phillip s apartments in the Esplanade, 
 Sam hurried into an inner room. Methodically he 
 took cushions from the couch and pillows from the 
 bed, and piled them in a corner; then he sat down 
 against them with the suit-case between his knees, 
 and within five minutes, in loose-limbed ease and
 
 TWO LADIES ADDRESS NOTES 15 
 
 with an unblinking stare, had lapsed into a semi- 
 trance-like condition, which he could maintain for 
 hours. He reminded one of nothing so much as a 
 huge brown bulldog on guard, and it would have 
 gone ill with any living creature that had tried to 
 touch that suit-case. 
 
 Meanwhile, Phillip, in the apartment which had 
 been turned into an office for him, entered his record 
 of the day s business on filing-cards and upon a 
 huge diagram sheet, then wrote a long and careful 
 letter, after which he took pencil and paper from 
 a drawer in his desk and delved into numerous 
 books of statistics. 
 
 It was nearing three o clock when a boy brought 
 in two letters. One of them, in a heavy, cream- 
 tinted envelope and slightly fragrant, he opened and 
 read through with a frown. A postscript at the end, 
 however, brought a smile to his face, and he stepped 
 into the a d joining apartment. Sam s eyes were 
 closed, but Phillip had no sooner set foot in the 
 room than he opened them, black and shining and 
 as expressionless as the eyes of a huge turtle. 
 Without moving, he waited for Phillip to address 
 him. 
 
 " Lucy hasn t forgotten you, Sam," said Phillip. 
 
 Sam s eyes glistened, and a grin pushed the scar 
 out of the way to make room for itself.
 
 16 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " She suttenly is the most mischievousest pusson 
 Ah eveh saw in mah life," he exploded, and he 
 ended with a shrill falsetto chuckle. 
 
 " Her mistress writes," went on Phillip, glancing 
 at the letter again : " Lucy is turning pale since 
 your visit to Forest Lakes, and I think she is pining 
 away for Sam. She asked yesterday when he was 
 coming back. When is he ? 
 
 Sam bent over the suit-case, and slapped his legs 
 in a paroxysm of delight. " Ah suttenly is a lady- 
 killeh," said he. 
 
 Phillip, laughing, returned to his office, and tear 
 ing the letter once across, dropped it into the waste- 
 basket with a gesture of almost contempt, then he 
 opened the second letter, one addressed in a girl s 
 hand, but a firm one. This too he read with a 
 frown, but it was one of surprise, and going to the 
 window, he looked out upon the cheerless prospect 
 of endless roofs and tall, angular buildings with an 
 eye which saw far beyond these artificial canyons. 
 Seen thus and in repose, his face was a striking 
 one, striking because of the sternness that sat upon 
 every feature; but that this sternness, and the 
 habitual squaring of his shoulders and tilting of 
 his chin, had nothing to do with the second letter 
 was presently evidenced when, recalling his wan 
 dering thoughts, he smiled as he glanced down at 
 it. A ring of the telephone interrupted his musing.
 
 TWO LADIES ADDRESS NOTES 17 
 
 " Mr. Rensselaer ? " he repeated into the tele 
 phone. " Send him right up." 
 
 He turned to his desk and tossed upon it the 
 letter he had been reading, then quickly sorted his 
 index cards and arranged them in their case. There 
 came a knock at the door, and he opened it to let 
 young Rensselaer in. 
 
 " You re just in time, Bert," he declared. 
 "What have you to do this evening?" 
 
 " Anything or nothing, replied Rensselaer. " At 
 three o clock all I want to do is to get as far away 
 from the mutton abattoir as possible, and forget all 
 about it until the next morning." 
 
 You re a queer specimen to be engaged in that 
 branch of physical culture," commented Phillip, as 
 his eyes swept over young Rensselaer s stocky build. 
 
 " That s the only reason I m there," Rensselaer 
 declared with a grin. " It s the nearest thing to 
 bronco-busting that I can find," and he laughed out 
 of the sheer joy of living. " But what reckless dis 
 sipation have you in mind ? " 
 
 " I have some friends over in New Jersey that 
 I am more or less obliged to see," replied Phillip, 
 " and I thought you might sacrifice yourself enough 
 to run over with me. I understand it s only an 
 hour and a half if you take the tunnel." 
 
 Rensselaer shrugged his shoulders. " Oh, well, 
 if you insist upon the tube I guess I can stand it
 
 i8 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 as well as you. It can t be denied that it saves a 
 lot of time." 
 
 " I don t think that s the whole reason," con 
 fessed Phillip, putting on his hat and top-coat. 
 " Frankly, I want to get into the subway ; to smell 
 the subway smell, and renew, if I can, the impres 
 sions of novelty that I enjoyed in my boyhood. 
 You see, I was only a kid the last time I was here." 
 
 " It must have seemed a wonderful place to you 
 then," said Rensselaer. " For myself I d rather be 
 a cow-puncher than anything I can think of, but 
 my respected auntie can t conceive of one s living 
 anywhere else than in or near Manhattan, and 
 moreover she fears I might contract a mesalliance 
 out west, as she still declares my father did." 
 
 "That was his one best trick, wasn t it?" in 
 quired Phillip. 
 
 " No doubt of it," returned the other. " I m the 
 first Rensselaer in a hundred years who has been 
 able to bathe without the aid of a valet, and the 
 first one to have blood enough to gush when he 
 was cut; and my mother well, she was a real 
 woman; gentle, but brave, too; sweetly feminine, 
 but strong and healthy; tactful, but sincere and hon 
 est." His voice quavered, and he stopped. 
 
 " I wish I might have known her," said Kelvin. 
 "That is a good country to produce real human
 
 TWO LADIES ADDRESS NOTES 19 
 
 beings. I think I gained health and energy enough 
 out there to last me through all my coming 
 campaign." 
 
 Rensselaer turned to him quickly. "Of course 
 I m not going to ask you what your plans are, nor 
 how you reached your present point," he observed, 
 " but you re doing a stunning thing, if it s your 
 aim to gain profitable conspicuousness. There 
 hasn t been so much real money in the financial dis 
 trict in years. Big checks are not uncommon, but 
 big wads of cold cash are a rarity. I had the 
 pleasure of making your trades this morning, and 
 within an hour afterward they were all talking 
 about it. You certainly must have put in a remark 
 able five years. Where did you go from Mon 
 tana?" 
 
 " Oh, down to Tennessee in the real-estate busi 
 ness," said Phillip guardedly. " There are large 
 natural resources in that state which are just being 
 developed, and I managed to get in pretty good on 
 them. I did a stroke or two down there that 
 brought me some success and some influential 
 friends. Now I am going to make a big play. You 
 know," and though he spoke lightly he frowned 
 darkly, " a certain Wall Street crowd, still in busi 
 ness, broke my father, and he died from it." 
 
 " I remember of your telling me something about
 
 20 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 that. But be careful you don t overplay your 
 game," warned Rensselaer, whereat Kelvin only 
 smiled, though grimly enough. 
 
 They had reached the bottom of the hotel elevator 
 shaft now, and they turned into the subway cor 
 ridor, a convenience which impressed Kelvin very 
 much. 
 
 " It s a bad development," stated Rensselaer, 
 shaking his head. " There is a growing tendency 
 toward these direct entrances, both in business and 
 in tenement districts, and it is bound to produce a 
 race of toilers who will see no sunlight whatever. 
 They will practically be human moles, like that er 
 rand-boy yonder, undersized and undeveloped, 
 physically, mentally, and morally; white and soft 
 and flabby, like putty. They will not be men, they 
 will be worms." 
 
 Phillip looked at the boy, a youth of about seven 
 teen years and not much larger than he should have 
 been at twelve, with a feeling of revulsion. " Some 
 time the worm may turn," he speculated; "and if 
 it does, watch out! When a country loses its mid 
 dle class it is in a bad way. You can crush out 
 of mankind everything, even hope, with one 
 exception." 
 
 "And that is?" 
 
 " The capacity to kill." 
 
 Rensselaer laughed. " Can you imagine any-
 
 thing more amusing or entertaining than a fight 
 with about fifty of those chaps? " 
 
 " I don t see the fun in it," objected Phillip. 
 " Assume yourself, however, merely for the sake of 
 illustration, to be able to cope with fifty of 
 them; when another and another and still another 
 fifty came it might grow a trifle wearisome. I saw 
 a crowd of newsboys in Chicago attack a very 
 brawny man once, and they nearly killed him." 
 
 " I ve known cow-men to fight over a milder dis 
 cussion than this," laughed Rensselaer. " I guess 
 we d better drop it. Do you remember that fa 
 mous fight between Mutton Harris and Freckles 
 Lane, over the proper way to flop a pancake? " 
 
 That started a line of reminiscences which lasted 
 until tunnel and suburban train had brought them 
 to Hampton, where Kelvin consulted the letter he 
 had carried in his pocket, and they searched out 
 the home of Ben White.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 YOUNG RENSSELAER DISCOVERS ELSIE WHITE S 
 SECRET, BUT NOT PHILLIP S 
 
 THE Whites were strictly an instalment 
 family. They lived in an instalment 
 house, wore instalment clothing, sat upon 
 instalment furniture, and read instalment books. 
 As Kelvin and Rensselaer turned in at the gate a 
 scowling collector was turning away from the door, 
 in which stood a plump, rosy and altogether 
 wholesome-looking young woman. Seeing the new 
 comers, she waited, a trifle apprehensively Kel 
 vin thought, but as they approached she recognized 
 Phillip and hurried out to meet him. 
 
 " I knew you d come ! " she said with an unmis 
 takable ring of delight in her voice. 
 
 " Quite naturally," Phillip assured her as he 
 shook hands with her. " Allow me to introduce 
 Mr. Rensselaer, Miss White." 
 
 She shook hands with Rensselaer, a firm clasp 
 which, though it was mere cordiality, left that im 
 pressionable young gentleman tingling. She bade 
 
 22
 
 ELSIE WHITE S SECRET 23 
 
 him welcome with the same unaffected heartiness, 
 and then turned immediately to Phillip. 
 
 " How lucky I am ! " she said eagerly as they 
 walked up the steps. " When I read your name in 
 the Sunday list of hotel arrivals I just felt sure 
 that it must be our Phillip Kelvin, and I told father 
 that I was bound to write to you and invite you 
 to come out," 
 
 " I wondered how you found me so readily," He 
 commented, smiling. 
 
 " It s because I m so lonesome," she replied. 
 " We don t make friends here like we did in Ten 
 nessee. I don t know why people seem so distant, 
 unless they are all so busy that they don t seem to 
 have time to become friends; so I am for ever and 
 ever reading the hotel arrivals, hoping that among 
 the names I ll find somebody we used to know." 
 She paused a moment and laughed at herself. 
 " But I never found one until now," she admitted, 
 " because they don t publish the arrivals at the cheap 
 hotels, and we never knew anybody who was likely 
 to be able to stop at the more expensive ones. That 
 is how I came to be sure it was you." 
 
 "I don t see why," objected Phillip. "When 
 you knew me I was as poor as a church-mouse." 
 
 " I know ; but that was five years ago, and I felt 
 sure that in five years you ought to be stopping at
 
 24 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 the Esplanade, or you wouldn t be the Phillip I 
 knew." 
 
 " That s a very pretty compliment, Phillip," said 
 Rensselaer. 
 
 " This young lady couldn t say any other sort of 
 thing about me if she is like she used to be," re 
 plied Phillip, placing his hand affectionately upon 
 her shoulder. Rensselaer thought she colored 
 slightly under the touch. " She w r as one of my 
 stanchest adherents in those days, long before she 
 was a young lady. How old were you when I left, 
 Elsie?" 
 
 " Fifteen," she replied. 
 
 " Five years ago," mused Phillip; " now you are 
 twenty." 
 
 " And you re thirty-three," she returned. " My, 
 how old we re becoming! " 
 
 She led them into the little parlor, which opened 
 directly from the stoop. Its floor was spread with 
 a cheap rug, there were cheap pictures upon the 
 walls, and the room was fitted with furniture of 
 fairly good lines, though oppressed with the riot of 
 inferior carving inseparable from cheap cabinet 
 \vork. In one corner was a music-rack filled with 
 music, and though that corner was filled with a 
 big chair, it seemed conspicuously bare. To Phil 
 lip, who knew the Whites so well, that space told its
 
 ELSIE WHITE S SECRET 25 
 
 own story. The payments on the instalment piano 
 had not been kept up! 
 
 Elsie saw him looking toward the bereft corner 
 and understood at once how much he knew. She 
 reddened under it, and, partly to hide her confusion, 
 went to the door and called back across the dining- 
 room to the kitchen, 
 
 " Mr. Kelvin is here, mother." 
 
 A very much faded-looking woman of forty- 
 two or three came in, drying the backs of her 
 hands with her palms. Her shoulders were stooped, 
 her face was wrinkled and flabby, her hair was 
 untidy, and about every line of her face there was 
 an attitude of whining dejection. Nevertheless she 
 was unaffectedly pleased to find Kelvin there. 
 
 " I m mighty glad to see you," she said, shaking 
 hands with him, and her tired eyes grew a trifle 
 brighter. " My, how solid looking you ve grown ! 
 Seems to me you look as if you was hunting for 
 somebody to contrary you. You didn t use to look 
 that way when you boarded with us, did he, Elsie ? " 
 
 The girl studied him contemplatively, but she 
 found no flaw in him, as Rensselaer, looking at 
 her, saw. He turned curiously, seeking Kelvin s 
 expression. Kelvin turned to Elsie, and in his gaze 
 Rensselaer thought that he read friendly admira 
 tion and nothing more. His look had not that rapt
 
 26 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 eagerness of her gaze, and never would have for 
 any woman, Rensselaer found himself deciding. He 
 decided wrongly. Kelvin had found himself 
 strongly drawn to Elsie, but he sternly suppressed 
 that tendency as quickly as he recognized it in 
 himself. 
 
 " I don t know," replied Elsie to her mother s 
 question. " There seems to be some slight change, 
 but to me he is just the same old Phillip, whom 
 I m glad to see again, and hope to see often." 
 
 " I suppose you re married by this time ? " sug 
 gested Mrs. White. 
 
 " I have never stayed in one place long enough 
 to get married, except in Tennessee, and there I 
 was too busy," laughed Phillip. 
 
 " Elsie never has forgot you," Mrs. White next 
 observed. " She thinks about you all the time, and 
 she s been talking about you ever since we moved 
 away." 
 
 The connection of Mrs. White s remarks was so 
 absurdly palpable that Rensselaer could not help 
 letting his eyes twinkle, and Elsie, catching his 
 glance of amusement, laughed outright, whereupon 
 the two callers joined her, very much to Mrs. 
 White s surprise. 
 
 " You was a mighty busy young man, even in 
 that six months before we moved away," rattled on 
 Mrs. White. " We was all sorry we had to go
 
 ELSIE WHITE S SECRET 27 
 
 and leave you behind, and it nigh broke Elsie s 
 heart But she s kep track of you all right. She 
 made us take a paper from back home on purpose. 
 First we saw that you struck oil on that cheap little 
 two acres of ground you scraped together and 
 bought, then you bought some coal-land and built 
 a foundry and a railroad or what not. I don t know 
 what all you done, but Elsie can tell you every bit 
 of it, from A to Izzard. She s " 
 
 " Mother, did you call father? " interrupted Elsie 
 demurely. 
 
 " Yes, he ll be right in. He s out in the garden 
 pottering around. You know he always was crazy 
 about gardening, and he ain t working now. Times 
 seem to be slackening up a bit," and a worried look 
 came across her face. Kelvin, catching it, began 
 to talk of other matters. 
 
 " How are the rest of the family? " he asked. 
 
 Both Elsie and her mother looked concerned. 
 
 " Grace is married," said Mrs. White, and, some 
 how, from her tone he felt that Grace, Elsie s elder 
 sister, was not happily married. " Ed got his spine 
 hurt in a football game, and he s up-stairs now. 
 You must see him before you go. He always liked 
 you so well. All three of the children did, for 
 that matter, although none of them put a crown 
 and a royal robe on you like Elsie did. Yes, you 
 did, Elsie, you know you did, and you never would
 
 28 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 give any encouragement to a beau, from that day 
 to this. I m afraid Ed s going to be an invalid all 
 his life." 
 
 " Oh, that must be seen to ! " protested Phillip, 
 shocked in spite of his embarrassment. " Perhaps 
 a specialist could bring him out all right." 
 
 Mrs. White shrugged her shoulders despairingly. 
 " Specialists cost money, and \ve ain t got it not 
 these times." 
 
 Mr. White came in, a man of about forty-five 
 and somewhat overweight. He was a plastering 
 contractor in a small way, and although he had 
 done no work for a month he bore the marks of 
 his trade upon every garment; even his hair and 
 his mutton-chop whiskers seemed rather to have 
 been mortar-bleached than to have grown naturally 
 gray. 
 
 " Hello, Phillip! " said he, shaking hands. " So 
 you were our Kelvin, after all. I didn t think that 
 anybody poor enough to know us could become plu 
 tocratic enough to stop at the Esplanade, in these 
 times." 
 
 " I don t know why not," returned Phillip. " It 
 seems to me that these times offer as many, if not 
 more, opportunities than ever to acquire wealth. It 
 is perhaps true, however, that nowadays if a man 
 has the fighting ability to get a start at all, he has 
 energy to go on up; for the big fight is in getting
 
 ELSIE WHITE S SECRET 29 
 
 out of the rut. That explains, perhaps, why we 
 have practically no middle class left to us. We 
 have only the abnormally rich ; the people who spend 
 all their money to live like the abnormally rich, and 
 the very poor." 
 
 " Something has to be done ! " suddenly exploded 
 Mr. White, bringing down his right fist upon the 
 arm of his chair. Phillip had touched upon his 
 favorite excuse for oratory. " The rich are grow 
 ing richer, and the poor are growing poorer, every 
 year." 
 
 Both Kelvin and Rensselaer smiled in recogni 
 tion of that ancient " bromide." 
 
 " Conditions must be changed entirely," went on 
 White, bringing down both fists. " There never 
 was any monarchy in the world, where the condi 
 tion of the laboring classes was worse than to-day, 
 nor where the power of money was so unlimited. 
 Look at Henry Breed ! That one man alone owns 
 an enormous share of all the property in this coun 
 try, and the United States government is not strong 
 enough to collect from him that twenty-nine-million- 
 dollar fine. It has been held up in the courts for 
 fifteen years. Some day this country will start 
 aflame, and will burn and destroy itself, to the hor 
 ror of the world." 
 
 Dinner-time came, and still Ben White raved on. 
 Kelvin, catching here and there traces of a rather
 
 30 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 close pinch in money matters, had not wanted to 
 stay to dinner, but he saw that he would hurt them 
 if he refused. Before dinner he went up to see the 
 bedridden Ed, a youth of about seventeen, and he 
 came down from that interview rather sober. 
 
 At the table, fortunately for the visitors, White 
 had another topic of conversation, his gardening. 
 It was just in the height of the vegetable season, 
 and White was very proud of his radishes, his 
 onions, his string-beans, his peas, his green corn; 
 and really they were very fine. He occupied nearly 
 half the dinner-hour in talking of these things, and 
 then some chance remark led him back to his fa 
 vorite topic the crimes of the plutocrats against 
 the proletariate and he began to accuse Phillip, as 
 a wealthy man, for his share in the existing injustice. 
 It was in vain for Phillip to aver that he had not 
 reached the plutocratic stage by any means, though 
 he was perfectly willing to do so. Ben White, hav 
 ing the idea once settled in his mind, could not be 
 changed. 
 
 Phillip found opportunity, before they left, for 
 a few minutes with Elsie. He was allowing him 
 self at least to feel toward her much as an 
 elder brother might, and was bluntly frank with 
 her. " Things are not going right in a business 
 way ? " he ventured. 
 
 " No," she replied. " Phillip, I knew that you
 
 ELSIE WHITE S SECRET 31 
 
 couldn t help but see it. Father seems entirely to 
 have lost his ambition. Ed is an invalid, and will 
 be. I have never been fitted for anything, but I 
 must go to work. I must; there is no way out of 
 it. Tell me what I should do." 
 
 It was one of those questions to which all men 
 of affairs are compelled to listen, but to which they 
 know no answer. 
 
 " It s a hard problem, Elsie, to find niches in this 
 busy world for people with no especial training," 
 he told her. " Stenographers earn good pay, if 
 they are competent and intelligent, but it takes half 
 a year to learn, and even then the advancement in 
 wages is very slow." 
 
 " I know," she replied. " I ve been all over that 
 ground a score of times. Clerking brings no ade 
 quate returns. I have about made up my mind 
 what to do. I shall apply for a position as a lady s 
 maid somewhere. I d be green even at that, but 
 I am intelligent enough to learn." 
 
 Phillip shrugged his shoulders. " I m afraid you 
 wouldn t like it very well. It s a very hard position. 
 Unfortunately, many ladies who are able to employ 
 maids haven t very good tempers at home." 
 
 " What else is there to do? " she demanded. 
 
 " I don t know," said Phillip. " I rather think, 
 however, that the best way for me to help you would 
 be to secure something for your father."
 
 32 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " He s difficult to manage. He has been very 
 unfortunate." 
 
 She was so emphatic as she said this, and looked 
 so straight into his eyes, that lie could not speak 
 the answer which was on his tongue that Ben 
 White was a man of weak purpose, and an atro 
 ciously poor manager. 
 
 " Nevertheless, I think I can place him," he said. 
 
 " If you only could ! " she replied. " We would 
 all be so grateful." 
 
 Her eyes spoke her gratitude as she looked up 
 at him, and they spoke of something else; at least 
 so Rensselaer judged as he came upon them. 
 
 On their way home, Rensselaer, who had resumed 
 his ranch bluntness in the presence of a ranch 
 friend, spoke of the girl. " Miss White is a beauti 
 ful young woman, beautiful in mind as well as in 
 face and figure," he declared. 
 
 " She has developed remarkably," admitted Kel 
 vin. " She was a little girl in shoe-top dresses 
 when I boarded at their house. Even then I 
 thought her pretty, but I never suspected that she 
 would become such a beautiful woman." 
 
 " She is so much more than beautiful," insisted 
 Rensselaer. " She is the sort of woman who would 
 spend her whole life in the endeavor to make her 
 husband happy, and she would succeed. I would 
 swear that she is of even temper and unfaltering
 
 ELSIE WHITE S SECRET 33 
 
 steadfastness; moreover, she is intelligent enough 
 to keep pace with her husband, no matter what 
 his progress." 
 
 " She is a fine girl," admitted Kelvin, pleased 
 that Rensselaer should have been so favorably im 
 pressed with his friend. " Isn t it startling, though, 
 to think how much her mother must have looked 
 like her at the same age ? " 
 
 " No," stoutly maintained Rensselaer. " Her 
 mother is only a pitiful example of what worry and 
 hard work and damnable poverty will do for a 
 woman. In happier circumstances, at from forty 
 to forty-five she would still have been a handsome 
 woman, one who would be a living guaranty of her 
 daughter s continued beauty." 
 
 " I ll think it over," said Phillip mockingly. 
 " Already I feel myself impressed." 
 
 " You are very lukewarm about it ! " charged 
 Rensselaer. " Don t you realize, Kelvin, that the 
 girl has made a demigod of you ever since she was 
 a child, and that to-day her impression was only 
 strengthened ? Right now she would marry you in 
 a minute, and you would insure yourself a life of 
 happiness." 
 
 " You have rather a romantic imagination, 
 Bert," laughed Phillip, with that laugh concealing 
 his true attitude in the matter, whereupon Rensse 
 laer gave up the topic with disgust.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN WHICH " THE CASH BEAR " EXPLAINS WHY 
 THERE IS NO MONEY IN THE UNITED STATES 
 
 IT did not take long for the Street to know that 
 there was a new " bear " influence at work. 
 When, on the first morning, some twenty 
 stocks were sold in one-thousand-share lots, no at 
 tention was paid. When, however, on the second 
 and third and fourth mornings the day s busi 
 ness was opened by the offer of one thousand shares 
 of each of these stocks, the coincidence began to 
 be noticed, and when the same phenomenon oc 
 curred on the fifth and sixth and seventh mornings, 
 it began to be not a coincidence, but a design, and 
 all the floor was talking of ft. 
 
 The stocks had been disposed of without diffi 
 culty, though there was no particular eagerness, for 
 the market was worse than sluggish. Now, how 
 ever, a certain " bull " coterie of the railroad crowd, 
 scenting here a deliberate attempt to force the mar 
 ket, combined in a more or less aggressive counter 
 attack, and within another week did actually 
 
 34
 
 THE CASH BEAR EXPLAINS 35 
 
 succeed in forcing up the entire line some ten points. 
 This action, however, had no effect upon Phillip 
 Kelvin. Every morning, attended by big Sam and 
 the inevitable suit-case, he made the round of his 
 five chosen brokers to dispose of his solid cash, 
 and every morning those five brokers sent their 
 gladiators upon the floor of the Stock Exchange to 
 sell the monotonous one thousand shares of each 
 of the twenty stocks which had been chosen for 
 attack. On the day that the bull movement had 
 forced stocks the highest, Galleon remonstrated with 
 him. 
 
 "Look here, Mr. Kelvin," said he; "you are 
 bucking up against some of the biggest men on the 
 Street, a group of half a dozen men, each of whom 
 could probably swallow you whole in a financial 
 way. If they get after your scalp I m afraid you 
 are in for losing a tremendous amount of money." 
 
 " You have everything margined fifty points ? " 
 
 " Yes. But I have known this same group to 
 manipulate the market to a seventy-point rise." 
 
 Young Kelvin was quite complacent about it. 
 " They are doing me a service," said he. " The 
 margins I have put up on the stocks previously 
 bought are ample. They are not going to force 
 prices far enough to make you call for more mar 
 gin, but if they do the margin will be forthcoming.
 
 36 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 In the meantime, however, they are enabling me to 
 sell at a much higher price. They are playing my 
 own game for me." 
 
 " I presume you know your own business," re 
 turned Galleon dryly; "but remember that I have 
 warned you." 
 
 " And remember that I have warned you ! " re 
 torted Kelvin. " Be sure you keep my cash in a 
 safe place, and do not entrust it to a bank. In 
 normal times a bank is a safer place than a hole 
 in the ground for money, but not in these times." 
 
 Galleon glanced at the financial journal upon his 
 desk, and took off his eye-glasses to wipe them. 
 " Except for the one trifle that currency is a little 
 tight, I see no cloud on the horizon," he observed. 
 
 " I am a better financial weather-prophet, for 
 this one time, than the Wall Street Journal," de 
 clared Phillip confidently. " In a very few days I 
 will show you a cloud that will cover this entire 
 district like a blanket of midnight. I know some 
 thing, I tell you." 
 
 Galleon listened incredulously, but he neverthe 
 less took Kelvin s order and telephoned Rensselaer 
 on Change to sell the usual thousand shares each 
 of the four stocks on which he was working. 
 
 This was the fourth or fifth time since he had 
 first come into the office that young Kelvin had 
 ventured such dire predictions, and in spite of the
 
 THE CASH BEAR EXPLAINS 37 
 
 fact that, except for the growing scarcity of actual 
 currency, there was no hint or trace of trouble to 
 come, Henry Galleon began to be a trifle impressed 
 by them, so much so that he began speaking of the 
 matter to others of his kind. In the offices of 
 Raleigh and Raleigh, of Wilde and Company, of 
 Booker and Watson, and of R. F. Eldridge, the 
 other brokerage concerns who were acting as Kel 
 vin s agents, Phillip dropped the same seed, and 
 from these five centers, aided by Rensselaer, there 
 gradually radiated a note of inquiry". Was the 
 market in a really healthy condition? Was the era 
 of stability on the wane? Was there an impending 
 break ? No one could tell. 
 
 In the meantime Kelvin steadily sold his twenty 
 stocks in one-thousand-share lots. With his pe 
 culiar methods he could not remain long incognito. 
 He became known as the " Cash Bear," and there 
 were a dozen conflicting stories as to how he had 
 got his money. 
 
 Young Eldridge took a great fancy to him, and 
 before he had been on the market a week had him 
 in at Sherry s for dinner with a lot of the big 
 guns of the market. It was discovered that Kelvin 
 distinctly knew how to comport himself in any 
 company. He said very little about business. He 
 told a clean story or two, quite effectively, but the 
 only thing of note he said during that dinner was
 
 38 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 that he confidently looked, very shortly, for the 
 biggest crash in the history of the Street. They 
 heard this remark in amused silence, but in the main 
 they liked him. Rollins, one of the conservatives 
 of the railroad group, and of vast experience, was 
 the only one who studied Kelvin seriously, but then 
 Rollins himself was serious at all times. 
 
 "On what do you base that queer prophecy?" 
 he wanted to know. 
 
 " I m not ready to tell you just yet," returned 
 Phillip, smiling, " but it is coming." 
 
 " I know why," put in Pellman, one of the more 
 reckless operators of the railroad group. " It s be 
 cause our young friend is on the short side of the 
 market for all the real cash in the country. There 
 must come a panic. He s like the boy who simply 
 had to find a groundhog in the empty hole, because 
 his family was out of meat." 
 
 They were quite content to laugh at Kelvin. He 
 was necessarily " green," being young and new to 
 the Street; but it was generally conceded that his 
 resources were remarkable, and they had respect for 
 his resources if not for himself. Rollins, however, 
 got Phillip to one side after the dinner. 
 
 " I m very curious about the slump you predict," 
 he said. " I hope it s true. I want to buy some 
 railroad stock, and it can t go any too low to suit 
 me."
 
 
 
 ASH BEAR EXPLAINS 39 
 
 Phillip looked at bin. in musing silence. He liked 
 Rollins, a clean, well-set-up man, with a clean life 
 and an honest one written all over him. 
 
 " You buy outright only, I believe, Mr. Rollins," 
 he observed. 
 
 " Outright only," replied Rollins. 
 
 " Then wait. There will be some bargains by 
 and by," declared Phillip, so seriously that Rollins 
 was impressed. 
 
 Kelvin had been in the market more than a 
 month, steadily selling all that time, when one even 
 ing, in a private dining-room at Sherry s, with al 
 most the same crowd, Rollins found that he had 
 no cash, and sent dowr a check to the manager, with 
 a request that he send up the currency. The man 
 ager himself came up vith the check in hand, and 
 very much worried. 
 
 " Very sorry, Mr. Rollins," said he, " but I have 
 not the currency in the house. We have had no 
 currency to speak of for several days. I don t know 
 why it is, but there seems to be a tremendous 
 scarcity of cash." 
 
 " No matter," returned Rollins with a slight 
 frown, tearing up the check. " I will get it else 
 where." 
 
 " Really I am sorry, sir," persisted the manager. 
 " I would offer to send out and get it for you, but 
 I have tried twice to-day, and there is no currency
 
 40 THE CASH INTRIGT". i 
 
 to be had. I will send up .-o the Night and Day 
 Bank for you." 
 
 "Never mind, I m going that way myself. 
 What seems to be the matter? " 
 
 " I don t know, sir," responded the manager. 
 " Trade was never better. Our regular customers 
 seem to have plenty of money, but no currency. 
 There used to be a certain portion of our customers 
 who invariably paid in cash ; now even these merely 
 sign the dinner-slips and pay by check. I don t be 
 lieve I have seen a thousand dollars in cash in a 
 week, except what I drew myself for our pay-roll 
 here." 
 
 " That seems to be a general complaint," re 
 marked Pellman, after the manager had left the 
 room. " There is a search; of money everywhere. 
 Yesterday my check was refused at two hotels. I 
 don t understand it." 
 
 " I can tell you," said Kelvin quietly. " Within 
 the past year nearly a billion dollars of actual cur 
 rency have been entirely withdrawn from cir 
 culation." 
 
 They were slow to understand how this could be. 
 
 " I have seen no mention of such a withdrawal," 
 urged Pellman. " I don t believe there is a man 
 on the Street who follows the fluctuations of cur 
 rency any closer than I do. Where and how has 
 this amount of money disappeared ? "
 
 THE CASH BEAR EXPLAINS 41 
 
 " In bread," declared Kelvin. " The one com 
 modity in this country which must invariably be 
 paid for in cash is the five-cent loaf of bread." 
 
 A short laugh ran around the board. 
 
 " I don t see where that could amount to a bil 
 lion of actual currency," remonstrated Ralph 
 Eld ridge. 
 
 " No ? " replied Kelvin. " I will show you. 
 Twelve months ago Henry Breed quietly issued 
 from his central organization, the United Food 
 Company of New Jersey, a general order that all 
 bread and cereal foodstuffs must be sold for spot 
 cash only. The receipts from these sales were not 
 to be deposited in banks, but were to be shipped in 
 currency to the general offices of his company. Do 
 you know what this meant? Breed began as an 
 obscure miller. He formed combination after com 
 bination of flouring-mills until, twenty years after 
 he started that task, he practically owned every grist 
 mill and every grain-elevator in the United States, 
 accomplishing that through an elaborate system of 
 rebating on wheat and flour shipments. Every 
 farmer who raised wheat, raised it to sell to Henry 
 Breed at prices set by Breed, for there was no other 
 buyer. His next step was to establish the immense 
 bakery system which now bears his name. Flour 
 was set at such a price that families could not af 
 ford to buy it, and that opposing bakeries were
 
 42 
 
 forced out of business. Now, in all the centers of 
 population, he has his immense mechanical bread- 
 furnaces, from which his bread-trains rush before 
 daylight to distributing-stations in all the small 
 towns, while his remarkable automobile service sup 
 plies the cities. By concentration of manufacture 
 he claims to have been of actual benefit to the coun 
 try, furnishing a better grade of bread at a lower 
 price than was ever known before, and making more 
 profit on it than individual bakeries ever did." 
 
 " That s all an old story," said Pellman impa 
 tiently. " He is a wonderful man, but I don t see 
 yet what that has to do with the scarcity of cash." 
 
 " It has just this much to do with it," Kelvin 
 went on, standing up to gain impressiveness. 
 " Breed pays everything by check, hypothecating 
 some of his immense stock holdings and thus turn 
 ing them into cash. He supplies nearly ninety mil 
 lion people with every ounce of bread they eat, with 
 every spoonful of cereal food upon every breakfast- 
 table in the United States, with every particle of 
 pastry served in this broad land of ours. Think 
 for one moment. Through this monopoly of all 
 cereal foodstuffs, every one of ninety million people 
 pays a tribute to him of, on the average, about 
 three cents a day, which amounts daily to over two 
 and a half million dollars, or in the past year to 
 nearly a billion dollars. Actual cash, gentlemen,
 
 THE CASH BEAR EXPLAINS 43 
 
 nearly a billion of actual currency gone from our 
 already limited circulation ! " 
 
 One-half of them had out their pencils and were 
 figuring upon the backs of cards and envelopes; the 
 other half were looking over their shoulders. In 
 the face of every man was the intense frown of 
 concentration. 
 
 " Nine hundred and ninety-five and a half mil 
 lion, to be more exact," corrected Pellman. " We 
 still have nearly two and a half billion with which 
 to transact business, however." 
 
 " You are making an error when you estimate 
 upon our approximate three and a half billions of 
 cash. You are not deducting the government cash 
 reserves in the United States treasury and sub- 
 treasuries. You are not deducting our billion and 
 a half of gold which practically never sees the 
 light of day, nor emerges from its sealed canvas 
 bags in the bank vaults. You are not deducting 
 the currency reserves in the approximate seven 
 thousand National Banks in this country. You are 
 not deducting the reserves in private banks, nor the 
 immense number of small private hoardings. The 
 per-capita circulation of money in this country is 
 estimated at thirty-five dollars. In reality, allow 
 ing for these reserves, the actual amount is prob 
 ably but a little over fifteen dollars per-capita, of 
 actual, circulating, hand-to-hand cash. Of this, over
 
 44 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 ten dollars pcr-capita is now in the possession of 
 Henry Breed, and this money has seeped away so 
 insidiously that not one of you shrewd financiers, 
 who make a knowledge of the ebb and flow of 
 money your business, has been aware of it. Gentle 
 men, it is nearly all gone now, and soon there will 
 be no money whatever in the United States! " 
 
 They went away from that dinner very quietly, 
 and each man put carefully into his pocket the en 
 velope or card upon which he had been figuring. 
 
 That night, in clubs and exclusive hotels, even 
 in private homes, there was much quiet selling of 
 stock, and the Atlantic cable was busy with selling 
 orders for the London Exchange. There had been 
 eight of the mighty kings of finance at that dinner, 
 either in person or by their near representatives ! 
 
 Rollins had walked away with Kelvin. 
 
 " This is a marvelous thing you have been tell 
 ing us," said he ; " but an incendiary thing, too. 
 The strange part is that it should have remained for 
 you alone to discover it, and to profit by it. How 
 did you find it out ? " 
 
 " Well, with ten thousand distributing agents, 
 each one instructed to remit in currency only, it 
 would be very strange if there were not a leak, 
 even though every agent was cautioned, as he was, 
 on pain of dismissal, not to reveal it. Doubtless a 
 host of people other than myself know of it, but
 
 THE CASH BEAR EXPLAINS 45 
 
 the individual amounts were so small that no one 
 paid any attention." 
 
 "That s precisely it," insisted Rollins. "It re 
 mained for you to appreciate and take advantage 
 of the enormous possibilities of the thing; to under 
 stand its magnitude in the aggregate. You are a 
 great man, Mr. Kelvin. You have been selling all 
 the time, haven t you?" 
 
 " Every morning," admitted Phillip, smiling. 
 
 " You must have an enormous account by this 
 time." 
 
 " Close to seven hundred thousand shares," con 
 fessed Phillip. 
 
 " And you held back your explanation of all this 
 until you had acquired all you wanted? I thought 
 so. Well, it s an ill wind that blows nobody any 
 good. I want some railroad shares. I see now 
 that your advice was sound; I ll wait until it goes 
 down to bargain prices; but I suppose you realize 
 what a calamity you are going to bring on the 
 country ? " 
 
 " I think I do," and Phillip s jaws closed with a 
 snap. 
 
 Rollins looked at him in slightly disapproving 
 speculation. 
 
 " Gad! " he said. " Some of the big men here 
 have been pirates, but you will be the most ruthless 
 wrecker who ever got into Wall Street."
 
 46 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " No," returned Phillip .with a curious smile. 
 " You have read me wrong. I am not a pirate ; I 
 am a reformer." 
 
 " I see," concluded Rollins; " in the same manner 
 that the Inquisition reformed the heretics." 
 
 " I decline to be interviewed," declared Phillip. 
 " Are you going up-town ? " 
 
 At the Esplanade Kelvin found Rensselaer. 
 
 " Have you been waiting long, Bert ? " he asked. 
 
 " Not very," yawned Rensselaer, " except that 
 I m eaten alive with curiosity. It isn t like you 
 to insist that I should break an engagement in 
 order to see you immediately after dinner." 
 
 " I m very sorry, but I had to impose upon you," 
 said Phillip. " You are the only chap on my list 
 who knows a lot of the newspaper crowd. I have 
 an item for them, and I don t want to give it out 
 myself." 
 
 He told Rensselaer what had transpired at the 
 dinner. Rensselaer clapped him on the back and 
 laughed long and loud. 
 
 " The newspapers will eat that story ! " he de 
 clared. "It s a wonderful thing! Great Scott, 
 man, how many shares are you short ? " 
 
 " About seven hundred thousand." 
 
 " Then every point drop means seven hundred 
 thousand dollars to you. This will send the line
 
 THE CASH BEAR EXPLAINS 47 
 
 down thirty points. Let me figure a minute. Why, 
 that s twenty-one million dollars ! " 
 
 " I figure on a little bit more than that," returned 
 Kelvin dryly ; " but don t let that distress you any, 
 Bert." 
 
 " You might have given a fellow a tip," com 
 plained Rensselaer. 
 
 " The time was never ripe for a man to speculate 
 on small margin," said Phillip. " A concerted bull 
 movement might have forced the market up ten or 
 fifteen points at any time. Not now, however. 
 How much money have you ? " 
 
 " A little over two thousand dollars of my own," 
 replied Rensselaer, " but I can get hold of ten thou 
 sand more." 
 
 " Do you know any way that you can place your 
 twelve thousand on the London market in the 
 morning? " 
 
 " I think I can." 
 
 " Get it down then as quickly as possible. I don t 
 want the newspaper men to have this before mid 
 night, but they should have it by then. That will 
 give you plenty of time to place your little ten- 
 point bet." 
 
 " Me for it ! " said Rensselaer, jumping up. 
 " Watch me make the sidewalk smoke." At the 
 door, however, he paused. " And just to think," he
 
 48 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 said, " that all this glittering opportunity comes 
 about through old Henry Breed. Why, I have an 
 aunt out at Forest Lakes, a guest of Breed s, she 
 calls herself; but she s a guest for pay, and is a sort 
 of bear leader for the fair Lillian. She would be 
 above taking money for coaching Lillian, and after 
 ward inducting her into society, but she s not above 
 letting Breed * handle her investments of a paltry 
 ten thousand dollars on a guaranteed return of one 
 hundred per cent." 
 
 *If you want to get those selling orders away 
 you had better hurry," suggested Kelvin, looking 
 at his watch. " I have an idea that the cables will 
 be loaded with just such messages before morning." 
 
 Shortly after midnight, Kelvin, who had laid 
 down in his clothes, was awakened by the ringing 
 of his telephone bell, and from then on until morn 
 ing he was kept busy answering calls from the 
 various newspaper offices. He gave them all the 
 information he could. They besieged him for 
 news, for photographs, for the story of his life, 
 for his views on everything from agnosticism to 
 tomato-culture, and in the morning, having given 
 out all the information he had at hand, he was com 
 pelled to go to another hotel incognito to escape 
 the reporters. He had brought to him all the morn 
 ing papers, and read with smiles the mass of 
 na ive exaggerations. He was the shrewdest man
 
 THE CASH BEAR EXPLAINS 49 
 
 that had ever come into Wall Street ; he was a com 
 bination of all the great financiers in America, from 
 Vanderbilt to Harriman; he had sold short any 
 where from one to ten million shares of stock; his 
 age ranged from sixteen to sixty, his complexion 
 from blond to brunette, and his character from a 
 humming-bird s to a vampire s. About only two 
 things was there no disagreement: he had con 
 ducted his commendable transactions with real 
 money, and Henry Breed, whose greed had made 
 this possible, was the most profound scoundrel of 
 the century ! 
 
 While he was still reading these accounts, the 
 Stock Exchange opened, and it opened with a rush, 
 with practically every trader on the floor wanting 
 to sell, and few wanting to buy. Within five min 
 utes of the opening the place was a pandemonium, 
 and he had to be a Hercules who held buying orders. 
 The peculiar part of the movement was that it 
 started simultaneously in nearly every trading 
 group upon the floor. Men with orders to sell five 
 thousand shares of U. P. would no sooner execute 
 that commission than they would plunge into the 
 Steel Common group with equal frenzy. The floor 
 of the Stock Exchange began to be littered with 
 little scraps of white paper, torn in sheer nervous 
 ness, until, as the excitement increased, there was 
 scarcely any of the floor visible. The telephone
 
 50 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 call-board was a solid block of white numbers, with 
 here and there a twinkling black space as the call 
 was answered. Athletic " floor-partners," carefully 
 selected for the rare combination of physical 
 prowess and nimble wit, would plunge, red- faced, 
 fighting with shoulders and elbows and hands, 
 through equally excited groups of forty or fifty, 
 and in the madness of the moment would grasp 
 an unfortunate buying clerk by the cravat to chain 
 his attention and secure the nod that meant a con 
 summated deal. Men with orders to wait for a 
 price bellowed in sheer nervousness. It was a roar 
 ing, shrieking, cursing hell, in which clothing was 
 rent, and men, either white-faced or purple-faced, 
 according to their temperaments, fought like fero 
 cious dogs for a mere glance from a man who had 
 buying orders. 
 
 By three o clock every security listed on the 
 Stock Exchange had dropped twenty points a share. 
 Many of them had gone still lower. That after 
 noon the private dining-rooms of all the exclusive 
 cafes were filled with grave men, certain groups 
 planning to go with the movement, and others, 
 more far-seeing, devising ways and means to stem 
 the oncoming tide. 
 
 Pellman himself took a train to Forest Lakes, 
 the country home of Henry Breed. The six big 
 gest railroad operators in the Street had met with
 
 THE CASH BEAR EXPLAINS 51 
 
 Pellman, and had decided that if any man could 
 influence Breed, Pellman was the man. Pellman 
 himself was dubious. He had once angered Breed, 
 but, for that matter, Breed had engaged in some 
 quarrel or other with every man in the market.
 
 CHAPTER V, 
 
 THE RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD IS IN NO CON 
 DITION TO TALK BUSINESS 
 
 PELLMAN approached Forest Lakes with a 
 confidence that diminished as he came in 
 sight of the forbidding gray stone wall which 
 surrounded Breed s immense estate. For nearly a 
 mile this wall hemmed in one side of the country 
 road; beyond that barrier the estate was heavily 
 wooded, and where the wall dipped across little val 
 leys, Pellman peered over the top of it with much 
 curiosity. He caught the glint of water amid the 
 trees ; he saw a deer stalking calmly across a glade. 
 Pellman, while he had frequently been a guest at 
 Breed s other houses, had never been at Forest 
 Lakes, nor had any of his friends. This was 
 Breed s retreat from the world, where none but 
 the family and servants ever penetrated. 
 
 At the great iron gates a grizzled old woodsman 
 with a gun took Pellman s card through the grille, 
 and stepping inside a small lodge telephoned to the 
 house. He came out again in a few moments. 
 
 52
 
 RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD 53 
 
 " Mr. Breed is ill," he said. " The doctor has 
 forbidden him to see any one." 
 
 " Is the doctor in the house? " asked Pellman. 
 
 " Yes, sir. It is Mr. Breed s own doctor. He 
 lives here." 
 
 Pellman proffered a bill. " Telephone the doctor 
 that I would like to see him." 
 
 " All right, sir," said the gate-keeper, and turned 
 slowly away, but he did not touch the money. He 
 was gone about five minutes. " Doctor Zelplian 
 says that you may come up to the house," he an 
 nounced upon his return. 
 
 Pellman frowned as the big gates swung open, 
 admitting his limousine ; he frowned still more when 
 the chauffeur was stopped just inside the gates, 
 while three other bronzed and grizzled woodsmen, 
 each with a gun, trudged down along the inside of 
 the wall and stared into his car, fixing his features 
 firmly in their memories. 
 
 At the door an almost decrepit servant, not in 
 livery, ushered him into a dim old parlor, where 
 rusty horsehair furniture bulged and crinkled with 
 the everlasting dampness. There was a rustle of 
 silk in the hall, and a girl of about twenty stopped 
 for a moment in the door. She was of unusual 
 beauty, dark haired and dark eyed, with a certain 
 quick, lithe movement that told of nervous energy
 
 54 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 gone riot for want of outlet. Her face was an 
 elongated oval with an olive under-tint, and cheeks 
 and lips were of a dark redness that told of over 
 much blood. For just a moment she stood, 
 a startling figure in her semi-fitted house-gown of 
 wood-brown silk, then she moved swiftly away, and 
 her place in the doorway was taken by Doctor 
 Zelphan, an inordinately squat and heavy-set man, 
 whose face, except for his eyes and knob of a nose, 
 was entirely concealed by a stiff bush of red beard. 
 Upon his eyes were glasses of extraordinary thick 
 ness, but behind the lenses they nevertheless shone 
 shrewdly. 
 
 "Doctor Zelphan?" asked Pellman, rising. 
 
 " I am, sir," replied the other with a bare trace 
 of foreign accent. " You wish to see Mr. Breed." 
 It was not a question; it was a mere statement. 
 
 " On a matter of the greatest importance." 
 
 " Impossible," declared the doctor. " It is not 
 only my orders, but his own, that no one be ad 
 mitted on any exciting errand." 
 
 He stood uncompromisingly against the door, 
 and the visitor judged that the door on the opposite 
 side of the hall led to Breed s apartments. Pell 
 man considered a few moments in silence. 
 
 " Is he able to talk at all ? " he asked. 
 
 " Yes," admitted the other, and for a fleeting
 
 RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD 55 
 
 instant Pellman thought that he had detected a 
 twinkle in Zelphan s eye. 
 
 " Then I must see him," insisted Pellman. " We 
 are in the throes of a national calamity ! " 
 
 He held out to Zelphan a copy of an afternoon 
 paper, aflame with the terror of the withdrawal of 
 currency from circulation, with the panic of the 
 morning, with dire prophecy for the future. A 
 certain rearrangement of Zelphan s beard showed 
 that he smiled as he read. 
 
 " Mr. Breed is in no fit condition to talk over 
 such matters," said the doctor, giving back the 
 paper with aggravating indifference. 
 
 " He must be in condition," insisted Pellman, 
 who was a tall, raw-boned fellow with jaws like 
 a vise, and with broad nostrils from which, when 
 under excitement, he breathed like a wind-blown 
 horse. " Mr. Breed alone could stop this." 
 
 Zelphan turned suddenly and strode to the door 
 across the hall. " Come in," he invited. 
 
 Pellman followed him into a great, dim library, 
 where, though the time was late in spring and the 
 sun-dried air outside was uncomfortably warm, a 
 huge wood-fire was burning, casting its fitful red 
 glow into the farthest corners of the dark room. 
 Near the window, but facing the fire, sat the re 
 markable man who, by his ingenuity and enterprise,
 
 56 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 had built up the most enormous business in the 
 world, and who, through it, had gained control of 
 not less than one-thirtieth of the capitalized indus 
 tries of the United States. He proved to be tre 
 mendously tall, in spite of his slightly stooped shoul 
 ders, when he rose to meet Pellman. His head was 
 entirely bald and of an ugly shape, all flat spaces 
 and sharp angles. He breathed Pellman s name, 
 and gave him a limp, fish-cold hand, then sank back 
 to his seat and looked indifferently at the fire again. 
 
 " I suppose you have heard, Breed," began Pell 
 man, " that a panic has broken loose to-day? " 
 
 Breed shook his head. " No, I had not," said he 
 with entire unconcern. , 
 
 " It has. To-day is but the mild beginning of it, 
 but we fellows who have been through it know pre 
 cisely what is to follow. By to-morrow the coun 
 try will be crazy, and there is no telling where the 
 ruin will end." 
 
 Breed looked into the fire and merely nodded. 
 
 " The entire board has gone down twenty points 
 or more to-day. From the temper of the Street 
 I look for all stocks to make a new low record." 
 
 Breed nodded at the fire. Pellman began to 
 breathe hard, a sign that his temper was rising. He 
 had been unable to arouse the slightest trace of in 
 terest in Breed. 
 
 " Cereal stocks have suffered more than any of
 
 RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD 57 
 
 them ! " He had saved this shot. The cereal 
 stocks had originated with Breed himself ; they were 
 a part of him, they represented his life s work, 
 and were quoted strong, always. To Pellman s in 
 tense disgust Breed only looked into the fire, and 
 nodded as one who had heard a pleasing tale. 
 
 " Look here, Breed," exclaimed Pellman, " you 
 are going to ruin all the business interests in the 
 country. You are going to break banks, stop fac 
 tories, and cause untold misery, even starvation 
 wholesale starvation, worse than this country has 
 ever known ! What are you going to do about it ? " 
 
 " Nothing," quavered Breed. " It is none of my 
 affair." 
 
 Pellman would have liked to shake him. He 
 looked at the man in silence, and while his sharp 
 nose and his thin lips and his pointed chin were out 
 lined crisply against the window, edged with a line 
 of carmine from the red firelight, a queer thought 
 came to Pellman, that there in that unlovely sphere 
 of bone lay a few ounces of brain that had built up 
 the most colossal fortune in the world; that held 
 subject to its whim the destinies, not only of the 
 ten million human beings directly or indirectly em 
 ployed by him, but now, in this extremity, the des 
 tinies of ninety millions of people! Pellman was 
 far-seeing. If this calamity could not be nipped 
 in the bud it was likely to be felt all over the world.
 
 58 .THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 And one man could do it, could, this very day, make 
 or mar fortunes, promote or destroy commerce, pro 
 long or end lives. And one man could do it ! It was 
 too much power. Wherein did the gray matter 
 in Henry Breed s head differ from that of all other 
 men? Where was the secret of his tremendous 
 force, his tremendous capacity to achieve? Pell- 
 man was startled out of this idle speculation by a 
 senile chuckle. Henry Breed, looking into the fire, 
 was laughing in a high-pitched falsetto, and nod 
 ding his glistening old head. 
 
 " Breed ! " commanded Pellman sharply. 
 
 The owner of countless millions looked around 
 at him almost vacantly, but before he could reply, 
 had he been minded to do so, a tall, gaunt man with 
 protruding cheek-bones and bristling red hair and 
 a drooping, sandy mustache came in with a slip of 
 yellow paper in his hand. He glanced at Pellman 
 inquiringly, and a gleam of recognition flashed upon 
 his countenance, although Pellman could have 
 sworn that he had never seen the man before. He 
 caught the man s eye, and its blaze, somehow, gave 
 him an uneasy feeling. He noted that the man s 
 skin was like leather; that his neck, though small, 
 had great cords upon it that swelled and thickened 
 as they spread toward his torso; that his shoulders 
 were broad, and that his great knotted hands told 
 of tremendous power. For only an instant the
 
 RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD 59 
 
 man s gaze swept Pellman, then he advanced to 
 Breed. 
 
 " A wireless for you, sir," said he, in a voice of 
 so deep a range that it seemed to jar all the air in 
 the room and set it quivering. 
 
 Breed glanced at the message, almost indifferently, 
 and handed it back. " Tell him that there is to be 
 no compromise with that firm, Blagg," he directed, 
 dropping his indifference suddenly, then relapsing 
 into it again; and he cast a crafty glance toward 
 Pellman. 
 
 The wireless operator smiled grimly and turned 
 away. As he started out the door the young wom 
 an Pellman had seen in the hall came in, accom 
 panied by an elder woman. Pellman saw Blagg s 
 eyes flame again as they rested on the girl, and 
 the man turned to look after her to the last as he 
 closed the door. 
 
 The elder woman was rather stout, with her 
 head thrown back in a general attitude of con 
 tempt, her cheeks flabby, but carefully made up with 
 rouge and powder, her eyes wrinkled, and her re 
 trousse nose uptilted, even to a greater degree than 
 her chin. Pellman remembered her vaguely as a 
 Mrs. Rensselaer, one of the long-since impoverished 
 exclusives of old Manhattan, but still a power in the 
 inner circles, and he idly wondered what she could 
 be doing here. Mrs. Rensselaer, however, had no
 
 60 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 curiosity about Pellman, or about any of them, for 
 that matter, casting upon them all a glance of un- 
 discriminating disdain, and, going to one of the 
 bookcases, she sought out a volume and took it away 
 \vith her. But the girl came and stood behind 
 Breed s chair, her hand resting lightly upon his 
 shoulder, and stared at Pellman with frank imperti 
 nence. Her attitude angered him. 
 
 " Breed ! " he again commanded sharply. 
 
 "Well?" asked Breed apathetically. 
 
 " You must listen to me," insisted Pellman. 
 " Half a dozen times, under emergency, you have 
 come to the front and helped to smooth things out ; 
 once you even saved the government. Now we 
 have a worse condition than any that has ever con 
 fronted us. The whole country is going to hell. 
 The Stock Exchange will be swept out of existence 
 before the week s end. There will be more bank 
 failures than have ever occurred in the United 
 States in any one year. I know how these things 
 start, and you know. Breed, you must do some 
 thing. I am not going away from here until you 
 do. Call off your absurd cash drain, announce it to 
 the public, and go with us to bolster up the market." 
 
 Breed looked around him slowly, and his eye 
 caught that of Doctor Zelphan. " Take me away," 
 said he. "I am tired. Lillian!" 
 
 Zelphan stepped immediately to his side, took his
 
 RICHEST MAN IN THE WORLD 61 
 
 arm, and started toward the door on the other side 
 of the fireplace, the girl supporting his other arm. 
 
 " Wait ! " almost shrieked Pellman. " You are 
 not so ill that you can not talk this matter over. 
 You were well enough just now to put the screws 
 on some concern unlucky enough to be under your 
 thumb ! Listen to me ! " 
 
 Breed only hastened his shuffling footsteps. 
 Pellman strode after them, but just as they reached 
 the door Doctor Zelphan opened it, and the girl 
 cast back at Pellman a glance of derision from her 
 dark eyes. She took Breed into the room beyond, 
 and as the door closed behind her she laughed an in 
 solent laugh of amusement. 
 
 Zelphan stood before the door with his feet apart. 
 " I told you just how it would be," he declared. 
 " The man is in no condition to talk business, and 
 must not be bothered again." 
 
 Pellman left the house, fuming, and his ill humor 
 was in no degree lessened when, just beyond the 
 gates, his hired car suffered a flat tire. The chauf 
 feur, rather a bungler, was full thirty minutes in 
 repairing it, and as they finally whirred past the 
 first point where the valley allowed a glimpse 
 beyond the wall, Pellman swore viciously as he saw 
 two figures crossing the glade armed with golf- 
 sticks. They were some distance away, but he was 
 sure they were the doctor and Henry Breed !
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 MR. PELLMAN DISCOVERS THE SOURCE OF 
 PHILLIP KELVIN S CASH 
 
 OVERNIGHT, merely from the impetus of 
 their descent, stocks went down not less 
 than fifteen points. Every newspaper in 
 the United States fairly dripped with sensational 
 stories based upon the fact that there was no money 
 in circulation. The announcement only intensified 
 the situation. Currency had been scarce, but there 
 had been enough to conduct needful operations. 
 Now all currency crept instantly into retirement. 
 Banks guarded their cash reserves with a life-and- 
 death desperation. Men who had been about to pay 
 small bills kept the money in their pockets, and a 
 universal stagnation set in. In another day ar 
 rangements were made in a dozen cities to issue 
 clearing-house certificates which were to take the 
 place of money. They were resorting instantly to 
 an expedient that had proved of immense value in 
 half a dozen different crises. In the meantime, 
 pandemonium had foreclosed its long overdue mort 
 gage upon the New York Stock Exchange. Its one 
 
 62
 
 THE SOURCE OF KELVIN S CASH 63 
 
 musical note was a shrieking roar, that rose and fell 
 in wailing cadences, and each crescendo was a requi 
 em for some dying firm of brokers. Like the black 
 plague, each corpse caused a dozen more. 
 
 Pellman, that day, sat in his office until nearly 
 eleven o clock, receiving by telephone the reports 
 of the slaughter. Overnight he had seen personal 
 disaster staring over his shoulder and had made 
 desperate attempts to fortify himself. Suddenly, 
 however, he found that he had no friends of in 
 fluence. Two days before he could have secured 
 almost unlimited backing ; to-day no one had money, 
 and there was no such thing in existence as a nego 
 tiable security. Only one thing could help him 
 a restoration of the public confidence and a con 
 sequent immediate recovery in the price of stocks; 
 and this only one thing could bring about an 
 announcement by Breed that no more cash would 
 be withdrawn from circulation, and that some of 
 that already retired would be put back into the 
 active channels of trade. Let Breed give that mere 
 announcement to the papers, authoritatively, and 
 not only Pellman but the whole country would be 
 saved. He hurried over to the New Jersey offices 
 of the United Food Company, first telephoning 
 to make sure that Ashburn, the general man 
 ager, was there. He found Ashburn in his private 
 office, watching the ticker ribbon with much inter-
 
 64 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 est, but before they had even exchanged greetings 
 he himself hurried to the tape, and read with his 
 own eyes the appalling record of the devastation 
 that had occurred within the last hour. Pellman 
 was a heavy holder of Northern Pacific, and as his 
 eyes glanced over the tape it ticked off the latest 
 quotation on that stock at a price so absurdly low 
 that he fairly shrieked at Ashburn across the white 
 ribbon. 
 
 " You people are responsible for this ! " 
 " Pretty clever work," commented Ashburn, 
 glancing into a mirror and settling his lavender 
 cravat. He was apple-cheeked and wore curled 
 mustaches, and his tendency to dandyism had al 
 ways annoyed Pellman. " Three months ago I be 
 gan selling short, and now I am closing up. The 
 market is bound to go lower, but there will be no 
 chance to get the money when it goes there. Look 
 at this ! " 
 
 A long sentence was being spelled out on the tape : 
 
 Wilson and Woodruff admit bankruptcy. 
 
 " It is beginning already," said Ashburn com 
 placently. He looked up at Pellman. The face of 
 the latter had turned suddenly to a ghastly greenish 
 pallor. " What s the matter? " Ashburn asked. 
 
 "Wilson and Woodruff!" gasped Pellman. 
 " We are bound up with them, owing to some recent
 
 THE SOURCE OF KELVIN S CASH 65 
 
 deals, like Siamese twins." Pellman s hands were 
 nervously groping from pocket to pocket. His 
 mouth and throat were working queerly. He 
 seemed incapable of speech. Ashburn understood, 
 and handed him a cigar and lit a match for him. 
 Pellman took a puff or two, and steadied himself 
 with a heavy effort of \vill-power. 
 
 " I was afraid of it," he said huskily, then sud 
 denly flared out again. " You fellows have done 
 this, I tell you ! " 
 
 " No doubt we precipitated the break at this par 
 ticular moment," agreed Ashburn ; " but you and 
 your kind are responsible for the break itself. It 
 was bound to come, for Wall Street is diseased. 
 This thing will turn out right, Pellman. In the 
 end you will find it to have been good medicine for 
 business at large." 
 
 " To hell with business at large ! " exclaimed the 
 other, grown vicious in his big rage. " What do I 
 care for business at large if I go bankrupt? When 
 are you going to stop this infernal massacre?" 
 
 " I don t know," said Ashburn calmly. " Orders 
 do not come directly from me. They merely go 
 through me." 
 
 " They come from Forest Lakes," asserted Pell 
 man. 
 
 Ashburn only smiled, and daintily flecked some 
 cigarette-ashes off his sleeve with a handkerchief.
 
 66 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " You re actually gloating over it! " charged Pell- 
 man, white with anger. " The whole thing is a 
 carefully made panic, by which Breed, and you head 
 bakers of his, profit. Well, there are ways to 
 make you do something, and I intend to evoke 
 them." 
 
 Ashburn shrugged his shoulders. " Go ahead and 
 evoke," he invited. " In the meantime I would 
 like to call your attention to the beautiful little fact 
 that I have personally cleaned up over one million 
 dollars in the past week, and I stand to make an 
 other handsome profit if all you manipulators don t 
 go to pieces before I can collect it." 
 
 Pellman returned again and again to the attack, 
 but finally was compelled to give up in despair. As 
 he walked away, almost blind with rage, he was im 
 peded by two men carrying an iron-bound wooden 
 packing-case, and his eye mechanically noticed that 
 there was a cut in the edge of one of the sheet-iron 
 bands, the point of this cut turning up in an ugly 
 fashion. He swore as he caught himself taking 
 note of such a trivial detail in the midst of his 
 worry, and bent himself sternly to the consideration 
 of his own tangled affairs. Like many another of 
 the larger operators, he had done considerable trad 
 ing through Henry Galleon and Company and the 
 other four conservatives to whom Kelvin had en 
 trusted his deals, and with each he had a varying
 
 THE SOURCE OF KELVIN S CASH 67 
 
 balance. He called up Henry Galleon to find out 
 the status of his affairs there. Mr. Galleon was 
 very cold about it. 
 
 " I must have more margin at once to protect 
 your purchases," he declared. " Your balance with 
 me is now less than fifty thousand dollars, and it 
 will be wiped out in an hour unless you send me 
 a check." 
 
 " Who is my principal creditor? " asked Pellman. 
 
 " Young Kelvin. He has been buying outright 
 all day and demanding absolute delivery of stock. 
 I think it is his intention to force delivery upon all 
 purchasers to whom he has previously sold." 
 
 " Where is he to be found? " 
 
 " In his apartments at the Esplanade," replied 
 Galleon. " He has a ticker in his rooms, and re 
 mains there until the Stock Exchange closes." 
 
 Pellman hung up the receiver, and hurried over to 
 the apartments of young Kelvin. He found Phil 
 lip seated before a huge sheet of figures, checking 
 off certain items from a thick pile of memorandum 
 slips. Seen here, he suddenly looked ageless. 
 Pellman had given him credit only for youth and 
 consequent inexperience. He moistened his lips be 
 fore he spoke. 
 
 " I understand you sold me ten thousand shares 
 of N. P.," he said. 
 
 Kelvin consulted a card-index, and nodded his
 
 68 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 head. " Yes," he replied. " Through Henry Gal 
 leon and Company." 
 
 "If you force delivery on that stock," said Pell- 
 man, " I can t save breakfast money out of my 
 operations in Galleon s office. I have come to ask 
 of you a big favor. Let me close that deal now; 
 let me give you my note for the difference between 
 selling price and present market price, you to hold 
 the stock as security." 
 
 Kelvin listened, and then quietly took from his in 
 dex case a separate pack of memorandum slips, 
 bound with rubber bands. He went through them 
 carefully, finally pulling out one slip. He studied 
 this a moment and then as carefully replaced it and 
 put the bundle in his drawer. 
 
 " Impossible, Mr. Pellman," he announced. 
 " No compromise can be made on this stock. I 
 have just purchased, for spot cash, ten thousand 
 shares of N. P. at sixty-four. You purchased 
 from me at one twenty-eight. You must take the 
 stock at that figure and you can sell it for sixty- four, 
 if you hurry. Or I will keep the stock, and you 
 can pay me the difference in cash." 
 
 " I can t possibly do it," said Pellman. 
 
 " I can t possibly do anything else," replied Phillip 
 dryly, and no amount of persuasion would cause him 
 to recede from that position. 
 
 Pellman, desperate to try some other means of
 
 THE SOURCE OF KELVIN S CASH 69 
 
 protecting himself, was turning away when two men 
 came into the room with a small wooden packing- 
 case bound with sheet-iron. Pellman might not have 
 noticed this circumstance, but for his recognition of 
 the men. His eye for smaller detail saw a cut upon 
 one of the sheet-iron bands, and an ugly upturned 
 corner. He had passed out of the room before the 
 full significance of this sank in on him, and then 
 he returned angrily to Kelvin. 
 
 " Now I understand," he said. " I see how you 
 came to be called the Cash Bear. That box is full 
 of money collected by Breed s company and fur 
 nished to you to conduct this campaign. We in the 
 financial field should have known what you were. 
 You are Breed s puppet! I understand, too, why 
 there is no chance to compromise with you. My 
 name is on the list of men that Breed has sworn 
 to break, and he has done it." 
 
 Kelvin looked at him calmly. " I can not prevent 
 you from supposing anything you like, Mr. Pellman, 
 but I would like to impress upon you the fact that I 
 am very busy." 
 
 " Dangling and dancing upon the strings that 
 Breed pulls ! " declared Pellman with hot contempt. 
 
 Kelvin smiled aggravatingly. " It seems to me 
 that you too are dangling and dancing upon the 
 strings that Mr. Breed pulls," he charged with cool 
 insolence. " But you might as well calm down, for
 
 70 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 since you have been talking to me your firm has been 
 announced as bankrupt." 
 
 " It s a lie ! " declared Pellman, though he knew 
 in his heart that it was true. 
 
 Kelvin pointed to the tape, where the ticker had 
 just finished announcing the suspension of Pell 
 man and Company. " It seems to be true," said 
 Phillip. " Moreover, I don t mind confessing to 
 you that we did it that, in fact, Mr. Breed in 
 tended to do it ; and I showed him how." 
 
 " You damned ! " shrieked Pellman, white 
 with fury, and advancing a threatening step. A 
 quick, warning signal from Phillip made him turn 
 hastily. In the doorway crouched a figure that 
 would have startled a man with even stronger 
 nerves than Pellman s. The crouching figure was 
 that of big black Sam, his long, gorilla-like arms 
 close to the floor, the huge muscles of his legs tense, 
 his marble-like eyes rolling, his lips drawn back over 
 his teeth in a jackal snarl and he was creeping 
 slowly forward toward Pellman. 
 
 "You d better leave, Pellman," said Phillip. 
 " You re the man that broke my father."
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 PHILLIP MAKES A CASH LOAN TO ELSIE WHITE 
 BUT STOPS THERE. 
 
 THE grim joke of it was that Wall Street was 
 being rent by its own Frankenstein. Wall 
 Street was quite used to panics, in fact it 
 had been in the business of making them, but here 
 was one that had been made entirely outside of its 
 calculation, and it did not know what to do with 
 the creature. The ghastly feature of this panic was 
 that the cause of it was going steadily on. Every 
 day, in every city and village throughout the land 
 where Breed had established his thousands of bread- 
 depots, was still that steady drain which had, in the 
 first place, caused the disruption of the financial sys 
 tem. Each depot was a rivulet of nickels and dimes 
 which, uniting in a broad river of dollars, flooded 
 the entire currency of the country to the feet of 
 Henry Breed. And that river could not be 
 dammed. Breed, as a retail merchant, had a per 
 fectly legal right to demand cash for his commodi 
 ties, and he could not be stopped from collecting it. 
 On the day that Pellman went under there were
 
 72 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 half a dozen other failures, and this was but the 
 beginning of terror-filled days, each with a more 
 and more dismal history. Throughout the country 
 banks were breaking, and business houses were 
 going down with them. Factories were suspend 
 ing, and chaos reigned everywhere. Every failure 
 made a dozen more, and from coast to coast there 
 swept with incredible swiftness a tidal wave of 
 bankruptcy. It was a hideous object-lesson in busi 
 ness methods. The entire boasted " prosperity " 
 of the country had been built upon nothing more 
 substantial than universal credit, which was, in 
 closer definition, but universal confidence. This de 
 stroyed, by a breath credit was destroyed; and a 
 whole nation of people was forced into immediate 
 idleness and want because its machinery for ex 
 changing the product of its labor for the product 
 of other labor had developed a broken cog. 
 
 And, as usual, it was the poor that suffered quick 
 est and most. Phillip, on a day especially prolific 
 of new champagne-fed paupers, was surprised to re 
 ceive a visit from Elsie White. She was pale and 
 nervous; much worry had caused her to lose sleep, 
 and as she stood before Phillip, her hands clasped 
 tightly together, young Rensselaer, who happened 
 to be in Phillip s apartments at the time, was sur 
 prised to find how keenly he pitied her. He hurried 
 to place her a chair, but she paid no attention to him
 
 A CASH LOAN 73 
 
 more than to acknowledge his courtesy, and Rens- 
 selaer, seeing her big eyes with the dark rings under 
 them fixed appealingly upon Phillip, mumbled an 
 apology and went back to Sam, whom he always 
 found amusing. 
 
 " I have come to tell you my troubles as I have 
 always done," said Elsie with a smile that was wan 
 in spite of all her effort to make it cheerful. 
 
 " Let s hear all about it," invited Phillip cordially. 
 " I don t think my little sister ever came to me, in 
 the old days, that I didn t help her out of her dif 
 ficulties, if possible." 
 
 " Indeed, no," she said gratefully. " You were 
 the finest sort of big brother." 
 
 She lingered a trifle upon that word, uncon 
 sciously emphasizing it ever so slightly; and Rens- 
 selaer, had he been there, would have noted in it, 
 perhaps, a trace of regretful abnegation. Phillip 
 outwardly accepted the w r ord as a pleasant expres 
 sion of confidence. Inwardly, he winced at it. 
 The impulse came upon him to repudiate it, but an 
 other and a greater passion held him back the 
 passion of an all-sweeping ambition. 
 
 " Who has broken your doll this time? " he asked 
 with a smile. 
 
 She shook her head. " It is worse than a broken 
 doll," she said. " When you were in Hampton you 
 spoke about securing employment for father."
 
 74 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Phillip turned grave. " I have thought about it 
 a great many times," he replied; " but outside of his 
 trade he has so little adaptability that I could not 
 think of a place for him." 
 
 Again Elsie clasped her hands and plunged he 
 roically into her errand. 
 
 " He must be put in a position to earn some 
 money. We are really in a desperate condition, 
 Phillip. You know, without being told, how we 
 have always lived from hand to mouth." Even 
 then, in her loyalty, she said " we." " For some 
 time things have been going from bad to worse. 
 Yesterday we received notice that we must give up 
 our home, and we must move out by Saturday. 
 We shall lose our furniture at the same time. Until 
 recently we had credit at the butcher s and the 
 grocer s, but that has been cut off. Grace s husband 
 is wandering about, somewhere out West, penniless 
 and hunting for work, and Grace and her two little 
 children have come home to us, just at a time when 
 we can do nothing for them ; yet they are ours, and 
 we must take care of them. Grace is not strong; 
 of the seven of us in the house, only father and I 
 are physically able to earn a living. I have been in 
 the city every day for the past week, hunting for 
 employment, and father has made more persistent 
 efforts than I have ever known him to make, except 
 in his hobby of gardening; but we have not found
 
 A CASH LOAN 75 
 
 anything. The time has come when we must find 
 it." 
 
 She did not tell him of their actual hunger, of 
 their almost actual starvation, but Phillip, looking at 
 her drawn face and knowing her old-time pride, 
 which she had humbled so simply and unaffectedly 
 before him, could guess, and was shocked. He 
 longed to take her in his arms and comfort her, but 
 he did not. 
 
 " Really, Elsie, I didn t know, I couldn t believe, 
 that the case was so desperate," he said with con 
 trition. " First of all, you must let me make your 
 father a loan sufficient to cover all needs; the pay 
 ments on the house and furniture, the little out 
 standing bills, enough to cure Ed and to run on. 
 No one outside of the family has a better right than 
 I to do this, and no one would be so glad." 
 
 " I know," she returned. " You are very delicate, 
 too, to offer to make the loan to father, but I d 
 rather you would lend it to me, for I have deter 
 mined to become the business man of the family." 
 
 For the first time her face colored. She felt 
 that even in this there was a hint of disloyalty to her 
 father, but it could not be avoided. 
 
 " Just as you like," agreed Phillip. " How much 
 shall you need ? " 
 
 She handed him a little slip of paper upon which 
 the amounts were already set down and totaled.
 
 76 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 The sum was pitifully small in view of all the vast 
 sums which Phillip had at his disposal. 
 
 " I don t think it wise for you to confine this to 
 actual necessities," he urged. " It would be much 
 better to take a larger sum; one that would cover 
 all emergencies." 
 
 Elsie shook her head firmly. " No," she said. 
 " I have already allowed a small leeway. The less 
 I can make the burden the better I shall feel about 
 it, for it must all be paid back. Please let me have 
 my own way." 
 
 " I - -- - see how I can do otherwise," replied 
 Phillip, giving her the money. She took it, gulping 
 down a little lump which rose in her throat and 
 suppressing the tears that lay on her lashes; then 
 said, with a pretty little assumption of business : 
 
 " I want you to write out a note for me to sign." 
 
 Without protest Phillip did so, and put the note 
 carefully away. 
 
 " Now we come back to the question of employ 
 ment," said he. " You mentioned a while ago your 
 father s gardening hobby, and I know from expe 
 rience what excellent work he can do. Do you sup 
 pose he would take a position in that line? " 
 
 " A month ago he would not, but now he would, 
 gratefully. If you can get him such a place it 
 would perhaps solve our problem." 
 
 " I believe that I can," mused Phillip. " Just
 
 A CASH LOAN 77 
 
 wait a minute," and he wrote a note, enclosing it 
 in an addressed envelope which he handed to her. 
 "If your father will take this note to the address 
 on the envelope, I am quite certain they will make 
 a place for him." 
 
 She put the note in her hand-bag, and rose, 
 extending her hand. " I don t know how to thank 
 you," she said. " You will have to take it for 
 granted." 
 
 He took her warm hand in his own, and if in that 
 moment he had obeyed the impulse that was in his 
 heart, that drew him to her almost irresistibly, that 
 cried out to him with a clamor that could scarcely 
 be stilled, if he had spoken the words that strove to 
 rush upon his lips, the whole course of his life 
 might have been changed for the better. But 
 again ambition, which grimly forbade any clog upon 
 his movements, interfered, and he held her hand 
 with the tenderness of a brother; no more ! 
 
 " Really, Elsie, I wish I could have done more 
 for you," he said. " I want you to promise me that 
 if you get into difficulties of any sort you will let me 
 smooth them out for you." 
 
 " I have no one else to go to," she replied simply. 
 She stood for a moment in a hesitation that he could 
 not understand. There was something else on 
 her mind, something that she could scarcely bring 
 herself to speak about. " Do you know how much
 
 78 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 suffering there is in the world? " she suddenly asked 
 him. 
 
 " I suppose there is a great deal of it." 
 " Do you understand what suffering is ? " 
 His face darkened. " I do," he returned. " I 
 had my share of it of illness, of poverty, of cold 
 and hunger, of uncleanliness, of the social degrada 
 tion that belongs with want of money. I know 
 these things, not as one emerging from them, but as 
 one cast down among them from luxury. Some 
 people, that experience softens, others it hardens and 
 makes bitter. Sometimes I think it had that latter 
 effect with me." 
 
 " It must not be ! " she said earnestly. " Phillip, 
 you may know what such things are in your 
 individual self, but I don t think you under 
 stand how widely spread they are to-day. What 
 has happened to my family has happened 
 to three-fourths of the people in Hampton, which, 
 as you may or may not know, is composed entirely 
 of poor people, workmen who, in better times, try 
 to buy their own homes. In that village of four or 
 five thousand people there are perhaps one-half of 
 them facing actual starvation at this minute." 
 " Yes? " inquired Phillip, waiting. 
 " There are hundreds and hundreds of other vil 
 lages just like Hampton, where thousands upon
 
 A CASH LOAN 79 
 
 thousands are in the same condition. Things were 
 never so bad as they are now." 
 
 " Yes ? " he asked again. 
 
 "They say they say" she halted and 
 stopped, and then, with her face coloring, she stum 
 bled on " they say that you have had a great deal 
 to do with it. They are saying it everywhere 
 that you brought on this panic, and that you could 
 stop it. It isn t true, is it? " 
 
 " In a measure I suppose it is," admitted Phillip. 
 " The condition was like a pile of loose gunpowder 
 at the side of a railroad track, where constantly 
 passing engines are sending up sparks. One sparkj 
 was sure to land in that gunpowder and explode it. 
 I merely happened to be the spark, but with no more 
 power than that spark to stop the subsequent de 
 struction." 
 
 She recoiled from him with dilating eyes. " It 
 is true, then ! " she said. 
 
 " I suppose it is, even in the way you look at it ; 
 but I assure you, Elsie, that it was necessary. Out 
 of this, better times will result, and better times 
 could not be reached except through this devasta 
 tion. It is like tearing down a tottering house, lest 
 it should fall upon you, but only tearing down to 
 rebuild better and stronger. It is like a surgical 
 operation, which, painful and cruel as it may seem
 
 8o 
 
 at the start, is necessary to save the rest of the 
 body from death and decay." 
 
 She shook her head. " I can not understand it ; 
 but then, I suppose I could never have been a sur 
 geon." 
 
 He smiled and laid his hand upon her shoulder. 
 " No, I don t think you could." 
 
 She winced under that touch and glance, not be 
 cause they were repulsive to her oh, not because 
 of that! but because they were the touch and 
 glance of a brother. 
 
 Rollins was announced just then, and the inter 
 view closed. Rollins, as he came in, met Elsie face 
 to face, and for just one fleeting moment he saw 
 into the pure depths of her eyes. He turned invol 
 untarily to look after her as she went out of the 
 door, and for some minutes afterward he was 
 abstracted in his talk with Kelvin.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LILLIAN BREED AND HER GRANDFATHER DISPLAY 
 THE BILLION DOLLAR VAULT TO PHILLIP 
 
 IN Phillip s touring-car, big Sam up beside the 
 chauffeur, Kelvin and Rensselaer bowled along 
 a pleasant country road, with the latter young 
 gentleman in a state of stupefaction. 
 
 " To Forest Lakes ! " Rensselaer exclaimed for at 
 least the twentieth time. " Why, you old fox ! 
 With us together as often as we have been in the 
 past month, and me talking of Breed, of my aunt, 
 and of the fair Lillian, you never said a word about 
 ever having known Henry Breed or of ever having 
 been to Forest Lakes ! " 
 
 "I didn t dare," answered Phillip. "I didn t 
 want my panic to come on too soon, which it would 
 have done had my connection with Breed been 
 known." 
 
 " But you might have told me," protested Rens 
 selaer, whereat Phillip merely laughed and shrugged 
 his shoulders. 
 
 " You re right," admitted Rensselaer, reddening. 
 "If you could not be tempted to tell anybody, that 
 
 81
 
 82 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 person could not be tempted to tell anybody else ; but 
 now that it is all over, how did you happen to fall 
 in with the old boy ? " 
 
 " Hunted him up! " said Phillip with sudden fire. 
 " As you know, this same crowd, of whom Pellman 
 was at that time the head, led my father into a care 
 fully prepared stock deal. It was as deliberate a 
 plucking as any greenhorn ever got at the hands of 
 a lot of confidence men, and it not only broke his 
 purse, but it broke his heart. It left him without 
 ambition, and when he died he left me absolutely 
 penniless. Even as a boy I planned to get even, 
 but I knew I must wait. Down South the chance 
 came. I made that oil-strike, then luck poured in 
 on me, and I began at last to make a lot of money. 
 One day, about a year ago, I read in a paper of 
 Breed s anger against this same Wall Street coterie. 
 I had formed some good acquaintances down there, 
 and among them was a man who knew Breed per 
 sonally. He gave me a letter of introduction. I 
 then went to see Breed and proposed this plan. He 
 returned an evasive answer, and I went back South. 
 Shortly after I returned there, however, I discov 
 ered that Breed had put into operation the system 
 by which I suggested he drain the country of its 
 currency. I discovered, too, that there were spies 
 watching me, and delving into my entire past his 
 tory. I said nothing, but I made up my mind then
 
 THE BILLION DOLLAR VAULT 83 
 
 that my time had come. Sure enough, Breed finally 
 sent for me. He had employed over fifty men for 
 nearly a year to examine every instant of my career, 
 and he was satisfied. I spent a week at Forest 
 Lakes evolving the plan in detail, and you know 
 the rest." 
 
 "It s a wonderful thing!" declared Rensselaer 
 with a long breath. " It s a romance ! " 
 
 " There is more romance in modern business life 
 than there was in the days of lance and shield," 
 declared Phillip, smiling. 
 
 They had now reached the stone wall that sur 
 rounded Forest Lakes, and both were silent as the 
 waving trees within brought to their minds the mas 
 ter of not only this vast estate, but of the modern 
 commercial world. At the gate they were admitted 
 unchallenged, though a score of bronzed men with 
 guns crossed their path between the lodge and the 
 house. At the door old Wilkins met Phillip, but he 
 was no more than within, when there was a rustle 
 of silk in the hall, and Lillian came eagerly forward 
 to meet him. 
 
 " I understand," she said warmly, " that you are 
 the conquering hero." 
 
 " I have done what I was told to do." 
 
 " But you have done it well. Now it is time that 
 you came home to get your reward." 
 
 " I have been fairly well rewarded as it is," he
 
 84 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 replied. " By the way, I have brought with me an 
 old friend of yours." 
 
 She turned and almost frowned as they were 
 joined by young Rensselaer, who had stopped a 
 moment to get something from the car, but that 
 fleeting trace of annoyance having passed she was 
 most cordial to him. 
 
 " We are glad to see you again, Mr. Rensselaer," 
 she said. " Mrs. Rensselaer has been expecting you 
 for several days, and, like a dutiful nephew, you 
 must pay your respects to her at once. You will 
 find her in her own apartments." 
 
 " I don t know if I like being dismissed so sum 
 marily," laughed Rensselaer; " but to show you my 
 ability to take a hint I ll go." 
 
 " That s all right," she laughed at him ; " you 
 may be miffy if you want." 
 
 " I ll see you later, Bert," Kelvin called after him 
 as he went up the stairs. Then to Lillian, " Where 
 is Mr. Breed?" 
 
 " He is just trying to make the eighth hole out 
 back of the stables, and I think he must be at about 
 the hundredth stroke for it," she laughed. " I will 
 go out and bring him while you remove the dust. 
 Go right up to your old rooms ; they have been wait 
 ing for you ever since you were here the other time. 
 They were becoming very lonesome for you." 
 
 Sam passed them in the hall with the luggage.
 
 THE BILLION DOLLAR VAULT 85 
 
 " When you get the luggage into Mr. Kelvin s 
 room, Sam," directed Lillian, " you will find Lucy 
 waiting for you in the kitchen." There followed 
 that gleeful falsetto laugh which set them both 
 laughing in sympathy, then Lillian hurried away. 
 
 Phillip turned into his apartments with a feeling 
 of relief. He was very glad to rest for a while 
 from the turmoil of the financial crowd; to leave all 
 the nervous tension of that tremendous tragedy be 
 hind him. Sam opened the luggage and put it away 
 in drawers and shelves and upon hangers, and had 
 just gone down the back stairs when there came a 
 timid knock at the door. Phillip opened it to a 
 maid who had come with towels, and stepped back 
 in surprise. 
 
 "Elsie!" he cried. 
 
 "Why, Phillip!" exclaimed Elsie. "I didn t 
 know you were to be here." 
 
 " Nor I you," said he. " How does it come 
 about?" 
 
 " That letter you gave to father," she explained. 
 " I came with him, applied for a place as maid, and 
 got it. Father is head gardener, thanks to you, and 
 is perfectly happy. We are both doing very nicely. 
 Did Miss Lillian know that it was you who were to 
 occupy these rooms ? " 
 
 " Why, certainly," replied Phillip. " I was here 
 before."
 
 86 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Elsie said nothing, but she wondered. Lillian 
 had seen Phillip s letter to her grandfather; in fact, 
 Elsie had used it, after it had served its purpose for 
 her father, as an introduction for herself, and she 
 felt sure that it had secured her the place. More 
 over, Lillian had casually asked about Phillip, and 
 Elsie had told, in glowing terms, how good he was ; 
 yet Lillian had never mentioned that she knew him, 
 and even now, when she told Elsie to bring the tow 
 els to this room, she did not mention Phillip s name. 
 Elsie stopped and blushed as she became aware that 
 Phillip was pursuing the same wondering course of 
 thought. 
 
 " Does she treat you nicely ? " Phillip suddenly 
 demanded. 
 
 " Oh, yes, very nicely, indeed," she replied, and 
 Phillip knew that she was not telling him all the 
 truth. He paused, embarrassed, upon his realiza 
 tion of this, and Elsie, suddenly remembering the 
 towels upon her arm, went on into the bath-room 
 and hung them up. As she came out again Phillip 
 stopped her and asked about the rest of the family. 
 
 " We are all getting on nicely now," she said. 
 " Grace has brought her children to live with us, 
 and with what father and I earn we can do splen 
 didly; we can even save a little money." 
 
 " I am glad of that," he said and stopped, not 
 knowing what else to say.
 
 THE BILLION DOLLAR VAULT 87 
 
 It was while they were standing, still somewhat 
 confused, that Lillian appeared in the doorway and 
 cast a sharp glance at them both. 
 
 " You have not mended that pink frock of mine, 
 Elsie," said Lillian in honeyed tones. " Really, my 
 dear, I had hoped to find it done. I would like to 
 wear it this afternoon. Better see to it right away." 
 
 Elsie nodded and hurriedly left the room. 
 
 " I am afraid you are a sad flirt," charged Lillian, 
 shaking her finger at Phillip. " Already you are 
 embarrassing that pretty little maid whom you were 
 accidentally kind enough to send to me." 
 
 " Has Mr. Breed come in ? " asked Phillip, delib 
 erately ignoring her accusation. 
 
 " Now I know there is something in all this flirta 
 tion," she laughed, though still somewhat piqued. 
 " Yes, Mr. Breed has come in, and he is waiting for 
 you in the library ; " and with a coyness that he 
 would not see she led him down-stairs to where 
 Henry Breed, his gaunt and ungainly form clad in 
 outing-flannels, received him with extreme cordial 
 ity. 
 
 " Well done, my boy, well done ! " said he, shak 
 ing hands with Phillip. " Come back and look at 
 my picture-gallery now." 
 
 In a room opening off the library to the right of 
 the fireplace, where Breed now led him with the glee 
 of a school-boy, a row of photographs ran around
 
 88 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 the wall just above the wainscot. Phillip, knowing 
 who and what they were, looked upon them with a 
 smile. They were the photographs of all the more 
 important men of Wall Street, but now upon each 
 photograph there was an X-shaped mark of red 
 ink. 
 
 " I checked them off as they fell, one by one," 
 said Breed, with infinite malice in his withered old 
 face. " Five years ago, when they made that at 
 tack on me and beat down my cereal stocks to al 
 most nothing, I vowed that I would put them out 
 of existence, and I have done it," and he rubbed his 
 thin hands together. " With your help, my boy," 
 he hastily added, " with your plan and your genius 
 and your own hatred and with my resources. 
 We are a great team, my son. I have had reports 
 about you. I know every move you made, what 
 you did in every hour that you were in New York." 
 
 Phillip nodded. He had known that he was sur 
 rounded by spies. 
 
 " Moreover, I know everything you did in all the 
 years before you came to me, and the chief thing 
 you did not do, the one thing which made me se 
 lect you out of the hundred others that I had under 
 observation, was that you did not get into entangle 
 ments with women. How much money did you 
 make of your own? "
 
 " I checked them off as they fell," said Breed
 
 THE BILLION DOLLAR VAULT 89 
 
 Phillip drew a long breath. " Nearly half a mil 
 lion," he replied. 
 
 " That is right," said Breed, nodding his head 
 with emphasis. " It was in a good cause, eh, Lil 
 lian?" 
 
 The girl laughed for answer. It was a good 
 cause. 
 
 " It is all in a good cause," Breed continued, as 
 if arguing against some accuser. " Business will be 
 healthier. The Stock Exchange, instead of a mere 
 clearing-house for countless bucket-shops, will be 
 come once more a place for the legitimate exchange 
 of securities. It is a great work I have done for the 
 country, but they won t realize it until I am dead. 
 Your deals, Phillip? Is every one closed that 
 could be closed? " 
 
 " Every one," returned Phillip with satisfaction. 
 " In a few cases I could not secure stocks I wanted, 
 but for the greater part I did. Those who could 
 not pay had nothing to pay with." 
 
 " Right again ! " and once more Henry Breed 
 nodded his head vigorously. " The stocks were the 
 main thing, after we got back all our cash. Come! 
 I will show you something that no one ever saw but 
 Lillian and myself. Where is Zelphan?" He 
 looked cautiously all around the room. 
 
 " He is out in the park," said Lillian.
 
 90 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " I don t want him to see or to know. Come this 
 way." 
 
 Back from this apartment was a bedroom, and in 
 it was a closet, hung neatly with clothes on hangers. 
 Breed fumbled about for a moment at the back of 
 this closet, when suddenly the whole rear wall 
 swung slowly upon its center. They passed through 
 into a narrow passage, concealed between the chim 
 neys of the two rooms, and from this, after swing 
 ing the closet wall shut behind them, the three 
 passed down one long stairway and then another 
 into a deep subcellar, steel lined, like a deposit vault, 
 with four cell-like passages, the heavy steel doors 
 of each secured with a combination lock. Breed led 
 them slowly through, pushing advance electric but 
 tons as he went. 
 
 " Absolutely impregnable, this vault," said he in 
 considerable pride. " Armies could not get through 
 it unless they knew how. The walls are six feet 
 thick, of alternate layers of steel plate and cellulose, 
 which dynamite could hardly destroy. The plates 
 were shipped here from Germany, in plain boxes, 
 and German workmen were brought here directly 
 from the ship, without the slightest knowledge of 
 where they were going. When the work was done 
 they were sent away, and not one of the men knows 
 where he was. Look here." He led them into an 
 inner vault, and here were row upon row of iron
 
 THE BILLION DOLLAR VAULT 91 
 
 drawers filled with greenbacks neatly bound in pack 
 ages, with the amounts marked on the outside. At 
 the end of the vault were rows of drawers filled 
 with gold in coin and ingots. 
 
 " Money ! " said Breed, gloating over the con 
 tents as he opened and closed these drawers. 
 " Money ! " said he, and he rubbed his lean old 
 hands together, while his eyes began to gleam. 
 " Not all these receptacles are filled, though. When 
 I had these vaults built I calculated how much 
 money there was in the United States, and built in 
 enough drawers to hold it." 
 
 There was something so sinister in the way he 
 said this that even Phillip, himself seething with 
 enormous ambitions, was startled. " It would be 
 impossible to secure all of it," he ventured, but 
 Breed did not hear him. He was wrapped up in 
 some contemplation which heightened immeasurably 
 the gleam in his eyes. 
 
 Lillian plucked Phillip by the sleeve, and drew 
 him outside the vault. 
 
 " He always likes to be alone a little when he is 
 down here," she whispered. 
 
 Phillip stopped in the second passage to examine 
 with interest the heavy hanging of the door. Lil 
 lian drew quite near him, and slipped her hand 
 within his arm. He could feel the warmth of that 
 hand instantly. He was more than conscious of
 
 92 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 the subtleness of her as she drew close to his side. 
 He was afraid of this girl, afraid of himself. The 
 thrill she gave him was not like that which he had 
 shared with Elsie. With Elsie it was love; with 
 this girl he drew slightly away. 
 
 " Suppose anything should happen to Mr. 
 Breed?" he asked. "What would become of this 
 vault? I presume its combinations are written in 
 some safe place? " 
 
 " They are not written anywhere," she told him. 
 " There is only one person in all the world, besides 
 my grandfather, who knows how to get in here, 
 and that person is myself. Of course I would not 
 tell, would I?" 
 
 He looked down at her. Her eyes were up 
 turned to his, and as he gazed into them they blazed. 
 She drew nearer to him. Her red lips were half 
 parted, and through them the warm, moist breath 
 came quickly. He half bent forward, seized with 
 the almost irresistible impulse to take her in his 
 arms. He was ashamed of that impulse. He had 
 not been ashamed when he had longed to clasp Elsie 
 to his breast. With Elsie, his heart had prompted 
 him; with this girl, his blood! 
 
 "You must keep away from me!" said he 
 harshly. " There are things I want to do big 
 things!" 
 
 The girl laughed lightly, well content for the time,
 
 THE BILLION DOLLAR VAULT 93 
 
 but a shrill chuckle startled them both and made 
 them turn hastily. Old Henry Breed stood in the 
 door of the vault, rubbing his hands softly together. 
 
 " Good ! " said he. " Good, Phillip, my boy ! I 
 knew you were about it. You keep as strong as 
 that, and I will make you anything you want to be 
 anything! " 
 
 In the brief time that they had been in the vault 
 a heavy storm had come up, and when they reached 
 the bedroom, Breed, still chuckling, following be 
 hind the embarrassed young people, they found the 
 place pitch dark. Phillip, who came out first, fan 
 cied that he saw a figure in the room as he emerged 
 from the closet, but as his vision cleared he saw 
 that he must have been mistaken. Out in the li 
 brary, however, they found the gaunt wireless 
 operator, whose eyes seemed to have the peculiar, 
 cat-like property of shining in the darkness. The 
 operator was just turning on the lights, and a flash 
 of lightning outlined him as he reached up to press 
 the hanging bulb. 
 
 " Ugh! It is like the end of the world! " shud 
 dered Lillian, and she clung to Kelvin and her 
 grandfather. " Such storms never come up," she 
 went on in a low tone, " but they make me believe 
 some hideous fate is in store for all of us." 
 
 What fate, indeed? Had the curtain of destiny 
 been opened at that moment to Mrs. Rensselaer and
 
 94 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 her nephew, up in the former s apartments, quarrel 
 ing about the advisability and possibility of his mar 
 rying Lillian; to Sam and Lucy in the kitchen at 
 war over the first passages of their rude courtship; 
 to Ben White, pottering discontentedly away in the 
 tool-house; to Elsie, on her knees with her face 
 buried in the tear-moistened pillows of her couch; to 
 Phillip and Henry Breed and Lillian, confronting 
 the tall wireless operator in the library, they might 
 well, perhaps, have rushed out into the storm and 
 prayed the lightning to strike them dead; but the 
 tall wireless operator would have gloated over that 
 glimpse into the awful future, and would have 
 prayed to live. 
 
 " I have a wireless for you, sir," he said to Mr. 
 Breed. The old man took the yellow slip, and drew 
 under the chandelier. Presently he turned to 
 Phillip triumphantly : 
 
 "The Board of Governors of the New York 
 Stock Exchange, after having suspended the Ex 
 change for a week in a vain attempt to straighten 
 out their muddle, have just called a meeting of the 
 members, and the only four to attend were four of 
 the five with whom you did business. The seats of 
 all the others are for sale, and there are no buyers. 
 The Stock Exchange," and his voice rose to a shrill 
 and tremulous shriek, "is wiped out of existence! 
 There is no Stock Exchange ! "
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 WHICH TREATS OF LOVE AND SOCIOLOGY AND CASH 
 CHIEFLY CASH 
 
 AT the selfsame moment, the next morning, 
 three men, in different parts of the huge 
 stone structure, were engaged in curious oc 
 cupations. In his bedroom near the top of the 
 house, the gaunt wireless operator was upon his 
 knees before his open trunk, his long fingers slowly 
 turning the knob of a combination lock. The lock 
 was one such as is ordinarily used on large vault 
 doors; it was mounted upon a plain iron plate, and 
 was now temporarily clamped upon the front edge 
 of the trunk, to keep it in its normal vertical posi 
 tion. Blagg, as he turned the knob, kept his eyes 
 carefully averted from it, but he listened most in 
 tently. Presently his acute fingers caught the faint 
 est perceptible shade of difference, as quickly as, if 
 not quicker than, his ears, for they stopped rigidly 
 upon the instant. Blagg now looked at the dial, 
 then consulted a small card which he held in his left 
 hand, and a look of intense satisfaction, amounting 
 almost to fierceness, flashed into his beady eyes. 
 
 95
 
 96 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 The last number of the involved combination had 
 been found by the senses of touch and hearing 
 alone ! 
 
 " Cash ! " he \vhispered. " Millions of cash, all 
 gathered into one place ! " 
 
 He changed the combination, marked it carefully 
 upon his card, and started once more, with averted 
 eyes and intent ears, to turn the knob. 
 
 In an office on the second floor Phillip Kelvin 
 stood over a large, hand-drawn map that was spread 
 upon his desk. States and rivers were but faintly 
 outlined, and cities but faintly marked except where 
 they were the termini of railroad systems, but every 
 mile of every railroad in the United States was 
 most carefully set down in strong lines, though in 
 inks of six different colors, indicating the six main 
 financial groups. Starting from the network of 
 lines radiating from New York, Phillip s clear eyes 
 followed each road in turn, ramification by ramifica 
 tion, to the end, going slowly and pausing over each 
 branch, as if to fix more firmly in his mind certain 
 facts connected with it. As he plodded back to the 
 starting-point he nodded his head in quiet satisfac 
 tion. 
 
 " To make these all one color," he mused ; " that 
 will be one step; then, with millions of cash - 
 
 In his deep subcellar vault, dynamite-proof, elec 
 tric-drill-proof, army-proof, old Henry Breed stood
 
 LOVE, SOCIOLOGY AND CASH 97 
 
 before his rows upon rows of iron drawers. One of 
 them was open, and the electric light glinted upon 
 gold. Breed rubbed his withered hands together. 
 His thin lips were wreathed in a smile that was 
 almost reptilian, and his eyes, too, glittered like a 
 snake s. 
 
 "Cash!" he gloated. "Millions of cash, and 
 millions more to come ! " 
 
 There was the sound of a bell in the big two- 
 story hall. Blagg hastily stopped his practice, re 
 stored his combination lock to its strong-box, turned 
 triple keys upon it, and double locked his trunk. 
 
 Into Kelvin s room came huge black Sam. 
 Phillip looked up with a quizzical smile which Sam 
 always aroused, and the smile turned to one of keen 
 amusement as he noted a long, red scratch on Sam s 
 right cheek which exactly balanced the permanent 
 scar upon his left. Had the lobe of his right ear 
 been nipped as was that of his left, his countenance 
 would have been exactly symmetrical. 
 
 " Breakfast is called, suh," announced the negro. 
 
 " Where did you get that scratch, Sam ? " asked 
 Phillip. 
 
 " Miss Lucy," answered Sam. " She suah am 
 a pow ful scratcheh ! " and throwing back his head 
 he opened his mouth to an enormous extent, emit 
 ting a loud guffaw which ended in a shrill falsetto. 
 " But Ah sweah, Mistuh Phillip, ef Ah eveh mah y
 
 98 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 that gal, Ah suttenly will bring heh pride maghty 
 low." 
 
 Down into the vault tripped Lillian Breed, her 
 dark cheeks red from her brisk morning walk, her 
 dark eyes bright, her scarlet lips parted over her 
 white teeth. " I hurried in just ahead of Doctor 
 Zelphan, grandfather," she said. " He will be here 
 in a moment. The breakfast-bell rang as I came 
 in at the door." 
 
 With the haste of a boy Breed followed her out 
 through the four vestibules, closing the heavy doors 
 of each one behind him, throwing off the combina 
 tion of its lock, and turning out the lights beyond. 
 He paused a moment to contemplate the door of the 
 last one, then he put his hands upon Lillian s shoul 
 ders. 
 
 " And in all this world only we two know," he 
 said. 
 
 " Mr. Kelvin knows," she reminded him. 
 
 " But not the combinations," he hastened to as 
 sure her. " Do you know how I have won my 
 supremacy? It is by finding big men to do both 
 my planning and my executing; by knowing such 
 men when I see them. Kelvin is one of these, and 
 to such a man as he the greatest incentive that can 
 be given him is to show him the tools with which 
 he may work. I showed him these enormous stores 
 of actual cash for that purpose, and the knowledge
 
 LOVE, SOCIOLOGY AND CASH 99 
 
 is safe with him. I know men. We two, how 
 ever, are the only ones who know the way into that 
 vault." An intangible film seemed to drop over 
 Lillian s eyes for a second. In the dimness he 
 could not see it, but her breast heaved and her 
 breath came quicker, and that he could recognize. 
 "You appreciate the power of it all, don t you?" 
 he continued. " Perhaps a little too much ; but 
 don t be mistaken, Lillian. This is not a game of 
 tennis, at which a woman can play. I have taken 
 you into my confidence this far only because, in 
 case anything should happen to me, I want you to 
 get at the stores that will make you the richest 
 woman in the world." 
 
 " Doctor Zelphan will be hunting you," she re 
 minded him. 
 
 Aroused from his momentary forgetfulness of his 
 one bugbear, the shrewd specialist whom he had 
 employed to look after his health and who, in that 
 capacity, had become a necessarily oppressive bur 
 den, he hurried up through the one room in his 
 house to which Zelphan had been denied access, 
 and with Lillian passed into the hall where Doctor 
 Zelphan stood awaiting them. His knob of a nose 
 was red with impatience. 
 
 " You promised, when I left you here at the house 
 this morning, to join me at the head of Big Lake," 
 he charged Breed. " If I can not take your word
 
 ioo THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 for a longer morning walk, I shall have to stay by 
 you until you do. Put on your hat and heavy coat." 
 
 " But breakfast is ready," protested Lillian. 
 
 The doctor peered at her with such open con 
 tempt that she flushed and straightened her shoul 
 ders. It was evident that there was something 
 deeply antagonistic between these two. Indeed, 
 Doctor Zelphan, openly classing her as a neurotic, 
 had once alluded to her as " the sins of the fathers 
 unto the third generation." 
 
 " If I employ a man to make me do things, I 
 suppose I ought to do them," Breed laughed, and 
 securing his hat and coat went out with the Spartan 
 doctor, just as Phillip came down the stairway. 
 
 Lillian waited for Phillip, and tucked her arm 
 playfully into his as he stepped from the bottom 
 stair. " I almost had the honor of going in to 
 breakfast with my grandfather," she said gaily; 
 " but see how much greater honor my disappoint 
 ment brings me." 
 
 "I admit it," said Phillip with a smile; "only 
 you are not expressing my merit strongly enough 
 to do me justice." 
 
 She felt keenly the coldness beneath his echo of 
 her raillery, and the inward contempt that he felt 
 for her, but she was a true daughter of Eve, and 
 knew that he felt the warmth of her hand upon his 
 arm; she knew, too, that he sometimes trembled
 
 LOVE, SOCIOLOGY AND CASH 101 
 
 under her unexpected touch, and with that she was 
 content, for the time. 
 
 In the dining-room they found only Mrs. Rens- 
 selaer and her nephew. Mrs. Rensselaer bowed 
 stiffly to Phillip, who, though accounted worth a 
 million or so through his own exertions, was of a 
 minor family, while she was of the very oldest; 
 but she was delighted to say good morning to her 
 young protegee, whom she was shudderingly bound 
 to coach for introduction into certain most exclusive 
 circles " not the parvenucs, you know, but the 
 really irreproachable people." 
 
 " How charming you are looking this morning, 
 child ! " she exclaimed. " Did you ever see such a 
 picture of health, Herbert? " 
 
 Herbert had his own opinions about Lillian. 
 There was too much nervous energy within her to 
 strike him as quite normal after his acquaintance 
 with healthy outdoor girls. There was too much 
 elasticity in her step, too much color in her cheeks, 
 too much sparkle in her eyes. 
 
 " She is the goddess of the morning," he stated, 
 " the very liqueur of life, the very spirit of spring, 
 the very quintessence of what-you-may-call- em. 
 Howdy, Miss Lillian." 
 
 " I m in my element," responded that young lady, 
 laughing; " for the imp of perversity seems to have 
 been let loose upon us this morning. Grandfather
 
 102 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 and his doctor, Mr. Kelvin, Mr. Rensselaer, and my 
 self, all have fallen victims to him. Every one has 
 but Mrs. Rensselaer; and who could consider her 
 in the light of a victim to anything? " 
 
 " No one, I trust," said that lady solemnly, and 
 began to gloom in the utmost majesty, for Mrs. 
 Rensselaer was most particular about her dignity 
 when among the canaille. Inspired by her eminence 
 among these people of no birth, Mrs. Rensselaer 
 made the rest of that breakfast as much a function 
 of state as possible. 
 
 After breakfast, Phillip, wearied of this play of 
 cross-purposes, slipped away by himself for a few 
 moments, against the time when Breed should call 
 upon him or send for him to take up the heavy pro 
 jects they had under way. He walked back toward 
 the kitchen-garden, where Blagg, having finished 
 breakfast in the housekeeper s dining-room with old 
 Fargus, Breed s secretary, had already preceded 
 him. Blagg was leaning over the fence, listening, 
 with a grim smile, to a tirade from Ben White. 
 
 " Why," White was demanding, " has this man 
 the power to hire me, to hire anybody? Why is it 
 possible, in this country of so-called equal oppor 
 tunities, for one man to accumulate wealth enough 
 to hire a hundred people to wait on him? Why is 
 our social condition such that the stronger can op 
 press the weaker ? "
 
 LOVE, SOCIOLOGY AND CASH 103 
 
 " Possibly, Ben," broke in Phillip, " so that only 
 the stronger shall survive, as has been the law since 
 Cain killed Abel. No doubt if Abel had lived, he 
 would have been the father of a race of weaklings 
 who would have died out of their own invirility, 
 after weakening the race of Cain." 
 
 Both White and Blagg had turned, startled at the 
 interruption, but now Blagg fixed upon Phillip a 
 searching eye, and declared : 
 
 " You don t believe quite what you say, Mr. 
 Kelvin." 
 
 "Quite true," admitted Phillip. "It becomes 
 necessary, however, to say such absurd things in 
 order to bring down the general average of what my 
 friend, Citizen White, says." 
 
 White, still bleached with the traces of his one 
 time plastering business, looked up with a smile. 
 " Good morning, Plutocrat," he observed. " Here 
 is one plutocrat, Blagg, whom I am bound to save 
 when the revolution comes. He secured our places 
 here for my daughter and myself." 
 
 " When the revolution comes we ll see about it," 
 said Blagg, laughing, and walked away. 
 
 " There s a smart man," said White, nodding in 
 the direction of Blagg. " He has all the facts of 
 our social condition at his finger-tips. He can tell 
 you how many people starved last year, and he can 
 tell you why they starved. He can show you, ir
 
 104 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 our scheme of government, the hundred flaws which 
 permit all these vicious inequalities of wealth." 
 
 " Can he tell yon," quizzed Phillip, " why shift 
 less men fail in business? "Why drones hang to the 
 lowest positions? Why unambitious workmen are 
 the first to be laid off when a pinch comes? Why 
 improvident people have nothing saved for a rainy 
 day?" 
 
 It was a direct thrust at White, and he colored 
 under it. With anybody else he would have blus 
 tered ; but Phillip knew his history. 
 
 " It is all very well to talk of inequalities," went 
 on Phillip, " but most of the talk I have heard has 
 been irrational, and so useless. I think our socio 
 logical mistakes can be remedied, and will be reme 
 died, but if the remedy were left to the people who 
 talk most about it we would have things radically 
 wrong the other way. How are those wonderful 
 string-beans getting on? " 
 
 " Fine ! " replied White, brightening. " Come in% 
 side and look at them," and, touched upon the point 
 of his greatest enthusiasm, he showed Phillip about 
 his garden, descanting for a full twenty minutes 
 upon the culture of green corn, and illustrating his 
 lecture with growing examples. 
 
 Mrs. White and Elsie came across from the 
 Whites cottage. Elsie had run down for an early
 
 LOVE, SOCIOLOGY AND CASH 105 
 
 morning call and was on her way into the garden. 
 Seeing Phillip, she was about to return to the house 
 instead, but her mother dragged her on. 
 
 " Good for sore eyes to see you, Phillip," hailed 
 Mrs. White, gay in a new dress and smirking with 
 renewed prosperity. " We owe a mighty lot to 
 you, Mr. Kelvin, and it s fine to get a chance to 
 thank you. Goodness ! We ve been here an age it 
 seems, and we haven t seen you once in all that 
 time." 
 
 " I have been rather busy, Mrs. White," said 
 Phillip ; " but you may rest assured that I have not 
 forgotten my old friends." 
 
 " I knew you hadn t," she returned heartily. " I 
 told Elsie so. Says I, * He might have rich girls 
 setting their caps at him, but he ain t blind; and he 
 ain t the kind to forget his old friends. Didn t I, 
 Elsie?" 
 
 The girl flushed painfully, but she was too whole 
 some not to see the humor, embarrassing though it 
 might be, of her mother s transparent intention, and 
 she revealed her white teeth in a dazzling smile. 
 
 " Indeed you did, mother," she replied, laughing, 
 " and much more which it is entirely unnecessary to 
 repeat, since Phillip knows us all of old." 
 
 In the meantime Blagg had gone to his operating- 
 room, and, having tested his instruments and made
 
 io6 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 ready for the day s work, he went to the window 
 overlooking the garden and gazed out in deep 
 thought. 
 
 Young Rensselaer strolled into the room, partly 
 to escape from his aunt s insistence that he should 
 court and marry Lillian Breed, and partly because 
 both Blagg and his art interested him. Blagg 
 turned and nodded, then looked out the window 
 again, and Rensselaer joined him. 
 
 " I suppose that if I were to offer a penny for 
 your thoughts, and you should take me up, I would 
 be a heavy loser," he observed. 
 
 " It depends upon what kind of thoughts you 
 would want for your penny," returned Blagg. 
 " To be perfectly frank, I was thinking of young 
 Kelvin out there." 
 
 " What about him? " inquired Rensselaer quickly. 
 
 " Seems to be a nice sort of fellow," returned 
 Blagg evasively. 
 
 " I should say he is ! " declared Rensselaer. " I 
 punched cows with him for six months out in Mon 
 tana, and I never found a better or squarer fellow 
 anywhere. If the world were made up of people 
 like Kelvin it would be all right." 
 
 " Yes," admitted Blagg, " if the world were made 
 up of people exactly like Kelvin it would be all 
 right; they would all have an equal chance. But
 
 LOVE, SOCIOLOGY AND CASH 107 
 
 since the world contains but a few men like him, he 
 is dangerous." 
 
 "Nonsense!" replied Rensselaer. "Why?" 
 
 " Because he alone, aided by Breed s money, was 
 able to destroy a tremendous institution like the 
 Stock Exchange," returned Blagg heatedly. " It 
 should have been wiped out of existence no doubt, 
 but in the process of breaking it up, thousands of 
 banks went under, thousands of business concerns 
 were bankrupted, and thousands of factories sus 
 pended work. Countless thousands of helpless poor 
 were thrown out of employment and faced starva 
 tion; and these are the people who invariably suf 
 fer." 
 
 Rensselaer was silent under an entirely new train 
 of ideas. 
 
 " See now what follows," Blagg went on. 
 " Their end having been accomplished, Kelvin hav 
 ing enriched himself by a million or so of dollars 
 and Breed by untold millions, Kelvin, by merely 
 opening his mouth, with Breed s consent, stops the 
 panic. What does he do? He issues to the press 
 this morning an announcement that the cash drain 
 has stopped, that Breed no longer requires ship 
 ments of actual money for his bread, and that one 
 hundred million dollars of currency, a very small 
 percentage of what he has taken in, is to be put
 
 io8 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 back into circulation. What happens next? Im 
 mediately confidence will be restored, credit will be 
 reestablished, banks and business houses will re 
 adjust themselves, factories will begin operating, 
 people will go back to work. Don t you see the 
 monstrous thing in this? The very lives of hun 
 dreds of thousands of men, women, and children 
 have depended upon this man s word! This is not 
 young Kelvin s w r ork; he is an opportunist, able to 
 see with unusual shrewdness his chances as they 
 come to him; but the crime of it all is in the social 
 system which permits any one man to hold so much 
 power over the life and welfare of so vast an army 
 of human beings. It is all wrong. It is mon 
 strous! Some day that system will be swept away, 
 and with it must be swept young Kelvin and all his 
 kind." 
 
 " You talk like Kelvin himself used to talk out 
 on the ranch," Rensselaer smilingly remarked. 
 " Kelvin has his own dreams of reform. You 
 ought to compare notes." 
 
 " I doubt if our dreams would be found to be of 
 the same stuff," returned Blagg grimly. " I 
 scarcely think that his deeds, up to date, would en 
 title him to any philanthropic claims. The only 
 ones benefited by his activity are a very few of his 
 own kind, Breed and himself, chiefly. I don t see 
 \vhat has been gained by the hundreds of thousands
 
 LOVE, SOCIOLOGY AND CASH 109 
 
 of workmen who had to do the only actual suffer 
 ing in the campaign. Take the gardener out there. 
 He and his family would have starved had not Kel 
 vin personally secured them these places because 
 he used to board with them when he was poor. 
 Even if Kelvin could have reached all of his inno 
 cent victims in person, and could have been of 
 benefit to them, it would only have been wholesale 
 charity. And charity is the gross insult of our 
 century to men who are able, willing, and anxious 
 to make a living by hard toil out of the natural 
 resources on this globe. Every man has a right to 
 delve into the soil, abundantly fertile to keep us all, 
 and reap from it a living. It was for this that the 
 Creator provided the earth and its richness." 
 
 " See the sunshine and hear the little birds twit 
 ter," flippantly interrupted Rensselaer, who did 
 most of his thinking on the instalment plan. " In 
 the meantime would it not be a pity to sweep out 
 of existence such a tall, well-built, good-looking, 
 decent sort of chap as Kelvin?" 
 
 Phillip and Elsie had by this time left the garden, 
 and were now walking slowly toward the house. 
 
 " Yes," Blagg admitted, " it would; and it makes 
 it all the harder when you see so beautiful a girl 
 as that looking up at him with that amount of 
 adoration." 
 
 Rensselaer nodded his head. The advancing pair
 
 i io THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 had drawn quite near to the house. Kelvin was 
 carrying a basket for the girl, and was pointing 
 out something in a tree-top. She was not following 
 the direction of his hand, but was looking up at 
 him, and the look in her eyes was such as comes to 
 a woman for but one man. Kelvin turnedgand she 
 shifted her gaze. Immediately brought to herself, 
 she was all animation and interest in the thing about 
 which he was talking. Lillian Breed, coming from 
 a cross path just behind Phillip and Elsie and half 
 concealed by shrubbery, stopped instantly as she 
 saw them, clutching her hand upon her breast and 
 half crouching. 
 
 " Look at that girl ! " said Rensselaer. " In 
 figure she is positively the most beautiful creature 
 I have ever seen, but she is beautiful like a cat, 
 like a tigress." 
 
 He glanced at Blagg s face and half recoiled. It 
 flashed upon him instantly that if Lillian were a 
 tigress, here was the male of her species. His eyes 
 were blazing, and his lips were parted in almost a 
 snarl as he viewed the succeeding tableau. Lillian 
 suddenly advanced upon Kelvin and Elsie, startling 
 them both. They found her smiling. Blagg and 
 Rensselaer could see her give some brief but per 
 emptory directions to Elsie, and the maid, hastily 
 taking the basket from Phillip s hand, hurried into 
 the house. Phillip, outwardly unmoved, saw her go
 
 LOVE, SOCIOLOGY AND CASH air 
 
 and outwardly unmoved he walked with Lillian out 
 of view around the wing of the house. 
 
 " And the queer thing of it," said Rensselaer, a 
 trifle regretfully, " is that he doesn t care a hang 
 for either of them." 
 
 "Tlj( s it!" exclaimed Blagg. "That s just 
 what I m telling you. He cares for no creature in 
 this world but himself! " 
 
 " I don t believe that either," declared Rensselaer.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 GEORGE BLAGG ENDS A CONVERSATION BY WHISTLING 
 THE MARSEILLAISE 
 
 AS Henry Breed, released from Zelphan and 
 breakfast, opened the door of Kelvin s of 
 fice, Lillian started hastily from the back of 
 Phillip s chair, over which she had been leaning. 
 The girl was confused, but the young man was not, 
 though his eyes rested speculatively upon Doctor 
 Zelphan, who, following Breed with a bundle of 
 golf-sticks, stood regarding Phillip and Lillian with 
 a half-smile that was almost concealed by his bushy 
 beard. 
 
 " How nearly do you know ? " asked Breed, ig 
 noring the girl altogether. 
 
 Kelvin, his map put away now, bent over a very 
 large sheet of white cardboard, ruled and cross- 
 ruled in blue and red, and swept his eye across the 
 diagrammatically arranged figures. 
 
 Breed watched the clean-cut face of the young 
 man sharply. In spite of the intense concentration 
 in Kelvin s eyes, there was no trace of lines in his 
 brow. Concentration, then, was no effort to him. 
 
 112
 
 BLAGG ENDS A CONVERSATION 113 
 
 His prominent jaws were firmly closed, but there 
 was no tenseness of the muscles. Determination, 
 then, was a habit with him, not a momentary pose. 
 His blue eyes were clear, his complexion was fresh 
 and pink, with no trace of dryness or sallowness. 
 He had not, then, spent any portion of his night in 
 worry. He sat easily in his chair, his broad shoul 
 ders in the comfort of habitual erectness and his 
 well-formed hands lying carelessly but steadily upon 
 the edge of the table; yet he had his huge subject 
 well in hand. 
 
 " The situation clears up more the further I go 
 into it," said he. " Out of the panic we have 
 emerged with a considerable profit in cash, and with 
 actual possession of eighteen per cent, of the New 
 York Central, and about the same of the Pennsyl 
 vania, Southern and Union Pacific, Northern Pa 
 cific, Southern Railway, and New Haven groups. 
 These practically govern all other railroads." 
 
 Breed sat down upon the stiff settee which Kel 
 vin had insisted upon having in this room instead 
 of a padded Morris-chair, and placing the tips of 
 his long wrinkled fingers together, looked contem 
 platively out of the window, his bald head glisten 
 ing beneath the edge of his golf-cap. His beady 
 eyes glittered above his hawk-like nose; his pointed 
 chin was tilted. 
 
 " Is it enough ? " he asked. " I want absolute
 
 ii4 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 control of every mile of railroad in the United 
 States." 
 
 " I think you have enough," replied Kelvin. 
 
 Breed looked at him questioningly, then he 
 turned sharply to his granddaughter. " Lillian, you 
 had better run along and get ready, if you are go 
 ing out upon the links with us." 
 
 The girl, who had lounged into the window em 
 brasure upon the entrance of Breed and the doctor, 
 straightened up and started slowly toward the door, 
 then suddenly she wheeled. " I want to stay ! " she 
 declared. " Grandfather, do you know what you 
 are doing to me? I have all the nervous energy 
 you failed to bequeath to my father. You coop me 
 up here. I must have an interest in something; 
 something big, or I shall go mad ! " 
 
 The doctor was the only one of the trio who 
 scrutinized her closely. The other two, for some 
 unaccountable reason, kept their eyes averted, Kel 
 vin studious upon his diagram and Breed looking 
 out the window again, apparently oblivious of the 
 fact that Lillian s gaze was bent upon him, her dark 
 eyes flashing, her unusually red lips half parted, the 
 over-color in her oval cheeks surging in carmine 
 waves, her breast heaving, her fists clenched. 
 
 " I tell you I shall die if I have no battle to fight 
 except myself and the social inanities which Mrs. 
 Rensselaer is presumed to teach me before I may
 
 " Leave the room ! " Breed said curtly
 
 show myself in Madison Avenue!" she declared. 
 " As an ambition, that does not seem to promise 
 much scope. I want larger things they can not 
 be too large. I, too, would build an empire or de 
 stroy one ! " 
 
 For the first time Kelvin looked quietly up at her. 
 She was a picture of striking beauty, but there was 
 about her a certain savageness, such as a Lucrezia 
 Borgia might have had, Kelvin thought, or such as 
 animated the woman- vultures of the French 
 Revolution. 
 
 Henry Breed was possessed of no such dramatic 
 comparisons. " Leave the room ! " he said curtly. 
 
 For just a moment she paused as if in thought 
 of further defiance, then, catching Kelvin s eye, she 
 half held forward her hand as if in appeal to him. 
 There was a physical change in the contour of his 
 eyelids, in the focusing of his eyes, and in the nar 
 rowing of his pupils, so slight as to be almost in 
 definable, and yet in them there sat such a look of 
 stony impregnability, while his lips squared ever so 
 slightly but uncompromisingly, that she suddenly 
 whirled upon her heel and strode out the door, slam 
 ming it behind her. 
 
 Doctor Zelphan followed her with his eyes, but 
 the half-smile was still lurking under his beard. 
 The other two heaved sighs when she was gone. 
 Breed dismissed the episode immediately.
 
 n6 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " Now you may explain," he told Kelvin. 
 
 " Well," said Kelvin, " the entire railroad map is 
 changed since the panic. All the names familiar to 
 the railroad world have passed into history. Next 
 week they will have been forgotten. The enormous 
 control of each of those men was like an inverted 
 pyramid, of which he was the supporting apex. 
 Your slaughter of the entire margin system of stock- 
 gambling pulled out one block after another from 
 the under side of those pyramids, and each and 
 every one of them, disintegrating, fell upon its 
 builder, crushing him flat to the earth. Not one 
 of them can rise again from the wreck." 
 
 Breed nodded his head in comprehension, and 
 his thin, flexible lips bent into a cruel smile. " I 
 know," said he. " There is a red mark upon each 
 of their photographs." 
 
 Kelvin nodded briefly. " But those men have 
 shown us the way. Let me give you, as an illus 
 tration, the control of one man. For five years he 
 denied that he had any interest in a certain large 
 road; but there came a time when a holding com 
 pany in which he was interested had secured fifteen 
 per cent, of the stock of that road, and this fifteen 
 per cent, was the largest single minority holding. 
 The man in question held, in his own name, less 
 than ten per cent, of the stock of the holding com 
 pany, but it was to the interest of every member
 
 BLAGG ENDS A CONVERSATION 117 
 
 that he nominate his own directors and control the 
 destiny of the company. Through this control, 
 therefore, he virtually possessed, personally, that fif 
 teen per cent, of the stock of the big railroad. With 
 that fifteen per cent, he sent, in his own name, an 
 appeal to the scattered stock-holders for proxies, and 
 through his personal prestige he came into the stock 
 holders meeting of the big road voting sixty per 
 cent, of the stock, and put through his own slate 
 of directors and officers. Then, through similar 
 means and through this one road, he controlled all 
 its branches and dependents, aggregating many 
 thousands of miles, and all despite the fact that he 
 himself actually held not one per cent, of the value 
 of all this stock! " 
 
 Breed nodded his head. " I have a check-mark 
 upon that man s photograph, too. This deal was a 
 part of the pyramid which crushed him." 
 
 " But it can t crush you," returned Phillip. He 
 poised his pencil over different points in his dia 
 gram, where, opposite the name of each road, was 
 set its total number of outstanding stocks and bonds. 
 He was not hunting any specific information, for 
 he had it all well in mind, but merely hovering over 
 the figures as a general might cast his eye across his 
 ranks, to make sure that nothing was amiss. 
 
 " You are the only man in the world to-day who 
 is able to bring practically endless resources to the
 
 n8 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 support of any project," he continued. " For in 
 stance, with an actual holding of less than one per 
 cent, of the total stock of all the railroad corpora 
 tions in the United States, you are able to dominate 
 every mile of iron highway, to depose or elevate 
 any man in the railroad business, from brakeman 
 to president ; that is, after you have taken the reins. 
 You have only one rival." 
 
 Breed raised his head quickly. "Rollins?" he 
 said. 
 
 " Sumner Rollins," repeated Kelvin. 
 
 "What made you think so? You spoke of him 
 yesterday." 
 
 " I met him during the days of the panic. Rail 
 roads are a hobby with him. He thinks that, with 
 proper management, they can be made practically 
 safe to the public, and still yield better dividends. 
 He is a conservative man, who has never speculated 
 upon margin; in fact, he is one of the few men 
 whom your campaign against the Stock Exchange 
 and Stock Exchange methods could not affect. 
 During the closing days of the panic, when such 
 stocks as Northern Pacific were reduced to the ab 
 surd figure of twenty-nine, Rollins was in the mar 
 ket to buy actual stock for spot cash ; and in several 
 of these roads he is to-day the second minority 
 stock-holder to yourself. I kept close record of his
 
 BLAGG ENDS A CONVERSATION 119 
 
 transactions, and, in fact, I sold him some Northern 
 Pacific and some New Haven myself." 
 
 " You did ! " exclaimed Breed, surprised and not 
 altogether pleased. 
 
 For the first time since the opening of the inter 
 view Kelvin laid down his pencil and leaned back 
 in his chair. His face was a trifle pale. He was 
 about to reveal himself perhaps more daringly than 
 Breed would like. " I did not exceed my instruc 
 tions," he explained, " for, in pursuance of my 
 plan, you merely told me to secure of the six lead 
 ing stocks all that I could. I did so, but found that 
 I had much more than necessary of some stocks 
 and not enough of others, so I traded. I could well 
 afford to let Rollins or any other man have some of 
 my surplus Northern Pacific and New Haven for 
 the purpose of obtaining more Union Pacific and 
 Southern Railroad stock. As it stands now, I have 
 secured the exact balance necessary to secure control 
 in each organization, according to their difficulty 
 of control. Whatever I had over this necessary 
 amount I let go, in order to secure minor holdings 
 sufficient to entitle you to a personal representation 
 in every railroad, major or minor, in the United 
 States." 
 
 Breed studied young Kelvin for a long time in 
 thoughtful silence, but in the end he merely grunted
 
 120 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 by way of comment. " How strong a rival do you 
 consider Rollins to be? " he asked. 
 
 " Formidable," replied Kelvin. " All the more 
 so because he has a personal dislike for you." 
 
 " How does he know I had him let out ? " asked 
 Breed. 
 
 Kelvin smiled. " How could he help knowing 
 it? He was dismissed from the management of 
 the old list of roads, formerly known as the Parsons 
 group, immediately after you secured a place in the 
 directorate for Hammel, who was distinctly known 
 as your man. He charges very openly that he was 
 decapitated because he stood in the way of the 
 scheme by which the Parsons group was deliberately 
 wrecked and laid open to capture by the Maclntyre 
 interests." 
 
 Breed shrugged his shoulders. " Mere dislike 
 doesn t make a man formidable," he declared. " I 
 would rather fight against a man who hates me 
 than against any other kind." 
 
 " Not when he is square, as Rollins is," objected 
 Kelvin. " Don t underestimate this man, Mr. 
 Breed. I don t know where he got the money, 
 but " 
 
 " The independent steel corporations," interrupted 
 Breed. 
 
 Kelvin stopped a moment and considered this 
 new thought. "That s so!" he exclaimed, and
 
 BLAGG ENDS A CONVERSATION 121 
 
 made a pencil note on the margin of his diagram. 
 " Then he is doubly formidable. As I told you, 
 he holds, second to yourself, the highest minority 
 block of stock in each of the big systems. He is 
 going to make a strong campaign for proxies, and 
 he is to be feared because, while not so well known 
 to the public as yourself, he is more favorably 
 known ; and when they come to investigate him they 
 will find him to be a man of stern probity." 
 
 It was the blunt truth, said bluntly. Kelvin 
 waited in some trepidation to see how Breed would 
 take it. 
 
 " The people are fools ! " declared Breed in some 
 heat. " I know what they think of me, but they 
 have no right to do so. I have given away colossal 
 fortunes in the endowment of universities, churches, 
 and public institutions, and they give me no thanks 
 for it; none whatever! It is time that the public 
 was chastised, and mine is the appointed hand ! " 
 
 His voice arose to a sudden shrill pitch, and he 
 began to tremble. Doctor Zelphan, who had been 
 watching him, hurried to him and put a broad red 
 hand upon his shoulder. 
 
 " A wireless for you," broke in a new voice. 
 
 Kelvin, turning, saw Blagg standing in the door 
 way. How long he had been there, none of them 
 could have told. For the first time Kelvin noticed 
 that Blagg s thinness was the thinness of a man
 
 122 ,THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 whose flesh had been reduced to nothing but sinewy 
 muscle. He was not much above thirty-five, and 
 there was an indefinable air of recklessness about 
 him; secrecy, too, for after a fleeting glance he in 
 variably kept his eyes averted from certain people. 
 
 Breed took the wireless and read it; then he 
 looked up at Kelvin with a curious smile. " So 
 you think I d better send for Rollins and make peace 
 with him ? " he said. " You suggested that yester 
 day, I think." 
 
 Kelvin colored slightly. He felt that he had 
 transparently wasted time in coming to this trans 
 parent conclusion. " It seems inevitable to me," he 
 replied. 
 
 "Well, I have already sent for him," announced 
 Breed dryly. " Here is his answer. He will ar 
 rive here at three o clock," and with an air of 
 triumph Breed arose, and, accompanied by the doc 
 tor, went out. 
 
 Blagg gazed at Kelvin curiously a moment, and 
 then laughed, a laugh that was entirely mirthless. 
 " He always has a surprise for you, hasn t he? " he 
 ventured. 
 
 " He is a remarkable man," said Kelvin soberly ; 
 " a big man." 
 
 " Yes," agreed Blagg, " everything about him is 
 big; his fortune especially. The population of the 
 United States is now almost ninety millions. Henry
 
 BLAGG ENDS A CONVERSATION 123 
 
 Breed holds, according to my guess, nearly twenty 
 dollars in money for every man, woman, and child 
 in the United States. Ten million of these people 
 are on the verge of starvation, and their twenty 
 dollars to-day would stand between them and hell. 
 Seventy million more are merely living like dogs." 
 
 "If they had their twenty dollars apiece they 
 would spend it," explained Kelvin suavely, " and 
 some Breed or other would have it again in no 
 time." 
 
 " But if there were no Breeds to establish enor 
 mous money-draining systems by means of the ex 
 cessive rate that must be paid for necessities, the 
 circulation would stay among the people." 
 
 " If there were no Breeds," retorted Phillip, 
 " you would not have a job. Here is a wireless I 
 wish you would get off to New York." 
 
 A change came over Blagg s countenance. His 
 expression had been an inquiring one, almost an 
 eager one; now it suddenly set in hard lines. He 
 took the form that Phillip handed him and walked 
 out the door. As he went he was whistling The 
 Marseillaise.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 LILLIAN BREED ANNOUNCES THAT SHE WISHES TO 
 BECOME AN EMPRESS 
 
 EARLY luncheon at Forest Lakes was usually 
 a deadly dull function, and to-day it seemed 
 more so than ever. A preoccupation seemed 
 to settle upon them all. Mrs. Rensselaer was the 
 only placid one among them, she being engaged 
 in the comfortable occupation of sniffing con 
 temptuously at the entire family, an occupation made 
 easy for her by the fact that Henry Breed had 
 started in life as a chore-boy. Could she have seen 
 into the mind of any of the five others at the table, 
 Henry and Lillian Breed s, young Kelvin s, Doctor 
 Zelphan s, or even her own nephew s, she would 
 have been startled out of her placidity for all time, 
 to come. In three of them, at least, there burned 
 and seethed ambitions as unlimited as the blue vault 
 of the endless sky, ambitions as far-reaching as those 
 which drove Napoleon to St. Helena, as those which 
 made Alexander weep, as those which cast Lucifer 
 from heaven; and each, at this particular moment, 
 
 124
 
 LILLIAN BREED 125 
 
 had concentrated all his thought upon himself and his 
 own plan of supremacy. Doctor Zelphan s thoughts 
 were different, but they were none the less startling, 
 and young Rensselaer was engaged upon vague 
 dreams of military conquest and glory. At that 
 very moment he was wishing for a war! 
 
 Out in the housekeeper s dining-room Blagg and 
 old Fargus, the latter Breed s ancient secretary, re 
 duced through years of hopeless service to a mere 
 automaton, lunched in equal silence, and Fargus 
 would have been equally startled with Mrs. Rensse 
 laer if he could have seen into the leaping mind of 
 Blagg. 
 
 At Breed s table they had nearly finished, when 
 Breed, looking up from the bowl of mush and milk 
 to which Zelphan restricted him at noon, suddenly 
 addressed Phillip. " Kelvin," said he, " if you had 
 your own way about things what would you do? " 
 
 The question was so nearly in line with Kelvin s 
 thoughts that it startled him, yet with- a whimsical 
 smile he replied: 
 
 " I would make myself emperor of the world." 
 
 "Good!" cried Lillian. "And I -- 1 would be 
 empress." 
 
 " Lillian ! " primly protested Mrs. Rensselaer. 
 " You don t mean anything, I know, but you should 
 be no more bold here, even in jest, than abroad." 
 
 " How do you know I don t mean it ? " returned
 
 126 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Lillian, with an earnestness which could not be al 
 together concealed by her raillery. "If Mr. Kel 
 vin could make himself emperor of the world, I 
 would exhaust every wile known to femininity, 
 every stratagem known to diplomacy, every force 
 known to \varfare, to become his consort. To be 
 empress of the world, to have life-and-death do 
 minion over every living creature, to hold in my 
 hand more power than has ever been possessed by 
 any human being for these things I would jeopar 
 dize my happiness, my life, my very soul." 
 
 Phillip glanced across at her with more interest 
 than he had yet shown, and found, with a thrill 
 which he could not deny, her eyes shining into his. 
 
 " Really," said Mrs. Rensselaer, rising, " we are 
 becoming very dramatic." 
 
 " No," remarked her nephew dryly, getting up 
 from his chair, "we are only telling our right 
 names." 
 
 An hour or so later, Phillip, striving to gain a 
 comprehensive grasp upon still another huge pro 
 ject he had in mind, had occasion to go into Blagg s 
 room, and there he found Lillian. Blagg was 
 glowing. 
 
 " You speak of dominion," Lillian said ani 
 matedly, conscious of her power over the gaunt 
 operator, and, perhaps, using it to pique Phillip; 
 " here it is," and she indicated the new wireless
 
 LILLIAN BREED 127 
 
 apparatus, which, introduced but recently, was 
 rapidly becoming universal. It was supplied with 
 keys, like a type-writer, and differed from that ma 
 chine in only one essential respect the paper in 
 it was upon a roll, like a ticker tape, and from either 
 side of the contrivance a glass tube filled with a 
 phosphorescent greenish light ran straight up to the 
 ceiling. 
 
 " With all instruments thrown into key, Mr. 
 Blagg can reach any one or all of the wireless sta 
 tions on the face of the globe," she continued. " At 
 his finger-tips is all the world! " 
 
 As she spoke the greenish phosphorescence in the 
 tubes began to glow and crackle in regular waves, 
 the mechanism of the type-writing device began to 
 click, and upon the tape there appeared a succes 
 sion of " M s." Blagg self-consciously drew out 
 his watch and held it while he watched the tape. 
 The machine began to print figures beginning with 
 " i " and ending with " 10," then one sharp click 
 and another " M " was printed. He put his watch 
 back into his pocket. 
 
 " Noon at Washington," he said. " I am not a 
 second out of the way." Mechanically he reached 
 out to the keys of his machine, and wrote upon 
 it the letters of the alphabet, in apparent idleness, 
 from " A " to " G " and back again, then signed 
 " G. B."
 
 128 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " Does that idle tampering with the keys carry 
 any place?" asked Kelvin. 
 
 " All over the world," replied Blagg in a low 
 voice, then suddenly arousing himself, he explained 
 in an offhand manner, " You see, every day, at this 
 hour, Washington time is sent out, not originally as 
 a correctant of time all over the world, but as a 
 test of all machines." 
 
 " Those letters, then, that you just printed ? " 
 asked Kelvin incredulously. " They were repeated, 
 too, on every wireless machine in the world ? " 
 
 " Yes," replied Blagg with a curious air of smil 
 ing repression ; " every operator in the world got 
 that message." 
 
 It was upon the tip of Kelvin s tongue to say that 
 it was a very trivial and inconsequential thing to 
 do, to have perhaps ten thousand machines repeat 
 all those idle letters at a time when they must be 
 interrupting a number of important communica 
 tions; but, after all, he reflected, that was the busi 
 ness of the International Wireless Company. 
 
 Kelvin suddenly heard the ring of a buzzer that 
 sounded like his own, and he turned to leave the 
 room. Lillian started out with him. As they 
 neared the door there was a crackling in the wire 
 less tubes and a faint click. A phosphorescent glow 
 flared upon the walls of the room. Kelvin turned, 
 still impressed with the wonderful reach of the wire-
 
 LILLIAN BREED 129 
 
 less, and found Blagg looking, not at the tape of 
 the machine, but at him, with the utmost ma 
 levolence. 
 
 Three hours later old Fargus came shuffling into 
 Kelvin s room. " Mr. Breed wishes me to tell you 
 that Mr. Rollins has arrived, and .that he would 
 like to see you in the library." 
 
 In that dim old room Kelvin found Rollins sit 
 ting uncompromisingly upright, his lips compressed, 
 his jaw set, his eyes stern. Breed sat easily back 
 in his chair. Kelvin was struck once more, as he 
 had been a score of times, with the idea that, no 
 matter what situation might arise, Breed was the 
 psychological master of it. 
 
 Rollins brightened at the sight of Kelvin, and 
 arose at once to shake hands with him. " Glad to 
 see you, Kelvin," he said, but there was a certain 
 amount of reserve in his greeting, for he did not 
 altogether approve of Kelvin. There was, more 
 over, a certain sternness about Rollins which never 
 varied, a sternness of purpose that went well with 
 his appearance of immaculate cleanness. He was 
 a smooth-faced man of under forty, with unusually 
 frank eyes which inspired trust at once. 
 
 " Mr. Rollins, without any preliminary conversa 
 tion, has just told me that he is not here for a 
 compromise," Breed interposed upon their greeting. 
 
 " I am sorry to hear that, Rollins," said Kelvin.
 
 130 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " I have been going over the situation pretty thor 
 oughly, and am willing to admit that if you fight 
 us it will annoy us somewhat; but it will be a los 
 ing venture for you." 
 
 " I don t think it," returned Rollins, his face 
 hardening. " I am willing to pit my reputation 
 with the public against Mr. Breed s at any time." 
 
 " Why make it a matter of reputation, Rollins? " 
 suggested Breed. " Why not make it a matter of 
 self-interest? I don t mind being frank with you, 
 because subterfuge would be of no use. I want, 
 and mean to have, control of the railroads; you want 
 the same thing. I think we both could be satis 
 fied. I consider you the best railroad man in the 
 United States to-day, and I want you to manage 
 the consolidated lines. Let us put our stock and 
 influence together, and we will both attain our 
 ends." 
 
 " Impossible," declared Rollins. " Our ends are 
 so radically different. I am not entirely a philan 
 thropist, but here is a case where I look upon philan 
 thropy as good business. Railroads have been con 
 ducted so exclusively for the profit, not of their 
 stock-holders, but of their control, that they have 
 overreached themselves in that very aim. An en 
 tirely different system will do away with the neces 
 sity for rebates, allow the establishment of a flat 
 freight-rate, render the roads more efficient, en-
 
 LILLIAN BREED 131 
 
 able them to carry more load with less horse-power, 
 give better service in every way, and insure some 
 thing that has never been attained in the history of 
 railroads absolute safety to the public as well as 
 reasonable dividends." 
 
 " Precisely my own aims," stated Breed. " I am 
 perfectly willing that you should carry out your 
 ideas." 
 
 "I don t believe you," retorted Rollins bluntly; 
 " nor could any amount of persuasion on your part 
 convince me. I know your record too well. You 
 were seventy-eight years old your last birthday, and 
 for seventy-eight years you have worked exclusively 
 for Henry Breed. It is not likely that you will 
 change at this late day." He turned abruptly to 
 Phillip. " Kelvin," he demanded, " do you believe 
 what he says ? " 
 
 Phillip was taken aback by the suddenness of the 
 question and hesitated. 
 
 Breed laughed. " It is one of Mr. Kelvin s un 
 fortunate traits to be truthful," he observed, " and 
 to save him embarrassment I would not press that 
 question, Mr. Rollins. Instead, we might as well 
 come distinctly to business. I want you for my 
 manager, and I mean to have you. I offer you the 
 opportunity now, directly and for the last time. 
 Pool your stock with mine, giving me control and 
 you management. Do you accept that ? "
 
 1 32 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " No," said Rollins. 
 
 " Then I will take control," returned Breed. "If 
 I do, and offer you the general management, will 
 you accept it then ? " 
 
 "If you gain absolute control," said Rollins with 
 a short laugh, " and if, after you have done so, you 
 offer me absolute management, with a free hand, 
 then I shall believe you." 
 
 As Rollins rose, apparently considering the inter 
 view terminated, Breed rang a bell and it was Elsie 
 White who answered it. 
 
 " This is Mr. Rollins, Elsie," said Breed. " Show 
 him to the suite next to Kelvin s. You can t get 
 back to-night with any comfort, except by auto, Rol 
 lins, but we shall be very glad to have you as our 
 guest." 
 
 Rollins had intended to refuse this offer, but he 
 looked at Elsie White and accepted. He was a 
 man who owed all his success to his faculty of in 
 stantaneous decision, and at the door of his apart 
 ments he engaged Elsie in conversation about 
 Forest Lakes as long as he could, in decency. 
 
 After Rollins had gone, Breed looked at Kelvin 
 quizzically. " I suppose you have a solution for 
 our problem?" he suggested. 
 
 " I am waiting to hear yours," returned Phillip. 
 
 " There is only one feasible way," declared Breed 
 promptly. " We must subsidize the press."
 
 LILLIAN BREED 133 
 
 Kelvin did not laugh outright, but he came near 
 it. "You have tried that, haven t you?" he 
 ventured. 
 
 " Only in a minor degree," declared Breed, " but 
 found no trouble about it." 
 
 " No," admitted Phillip, " you had no trouble 
 about it. That is, you wished to create a certain 
 amount of sentiment, or rather a certain dispute of 
 sentiment. When your agents found they could not 
 influence certain papers, they took others, and they 
 took the easiest ones, and the ones least worth while ; 
 but here you are proposing an entirely different 
 proposition. You want to obtain control of all the 
 railroads in the United States. Their ramifications 
 extend into every state and territory and include 
 nearly one quarter of a million miles of track. Re 
 member that the majority stock-holders of practic 
 ally every one of these roads are the public. In 
 order to reach them you must completely control al 
 most every paper in the land ; and even you have not 
 enough money. Even if they were all for sale, 
 which they are not, the amount necessary to ac 
 quire them would run into the billions. More of 
 them than you think are not upon the market, and 
 the surest way to antagonize them is to attempt to 
 purchase their principles. You can not subsidize the 
 press of the United States. Count that as final." 
 
 Breed nodded. He remembered one or two
 
 i 3 4 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 disastrous experiments during his early operations. 
 " What, then, do you propose? " he asked. " From 
 your attitude you evidently have in mind a plan of 
 action." 
 
 " I am not quite ready to lay it before you," re 
 plied Phillip. " It still requires some figuring." 
 
 " I suppose you will let me know when you have 
 quite made up your mind about it," Breed sug 
 gested with a trace of sarcasm. 
 
 " Yes," admitted Phillip calmly. 
 
 Breed frowned. " Don t get too high-handed, 
 young man," he warned. " Remember that, after 
 all, I am providing the weight which gives our plans 
 momentum." 
 
 " Mr. Breed," said Phillip, rising, " suppose, as 
 it would be certain to come up again, that we dis 
 pose of this phase of the matter at once. Any time 
 you object to my methods tell me to go, and it won t 
 require your private militia to put me out of the 
 grounds. I was worth two and a half million dol 
 lars when I came to you, and this you can not take 
 from me. I am here with you, however, because I 
 want to use the enormous power of your money for 
 purposes of my own. Aside from these purposes, 
 which are not a matter of life and death to me, I 
 assure you, I don t need you or your money." 
 
 Breed looked at him a moment, then lay back in 
 his chair and rubbed his hands together and
 
 LILLIAN BREED 135 
 
 chuckled until it threw him into a fit of coughing. 
 " And in the meantime," he gasped, struggling for 
 breath, " I suppose you intend to render value re- 
 ceived. Go ahead, my boy, and see who gets the 
 most out of it. I wouldn t part with you for any 
 thing. This two million and a half of yours, by 
 the way ; is it in cash ? " 
 
 " No," replied Phillip; "it is in highly profitable 
 oil-, coal-, and iron-lands, into the extension of 
 which my profits are going as fast as I am making 
 them. I hypothecated them in order to get in on 
 our Stock Exchange deal, but immediately removed 
 that encumbrance as soon as the deal was concluded. 
 So far as the cash is concerned, I would rather you 
 should have it than I; it has so much more weight 
 when thrown into one pile." 
 
 Again Henry Breed lay back and chuckled, and 
 he followed Phillip out of the room with extremely 
 friendly eyes.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 A MAD TWILIGHT, IN WHICH SEVERAL PEOPLE 
 RETURN TO BRUTAL FIRST PRINCIPLES 
 
 MRS. RENSSELAER, always drowsy 
 after a meal, and always fighting off that 
 drowsiness for reasons not entirely un 
 connected with embonpoint, sat upon the balcony 
 outside her own apartments, after the early dinner 
 customary at Forest Lakes. The level rays of the 
 low-lying sun shot long streams of red light through 
 the trees. The hush of coming twilight was in the 
 air, and the cries of the sleepy birds as, swift 
 winged, they sought their nests, gave Mrs. Rensse- 
 laer the fight of her existence to keep awake. 
 
 A loud guffaw, ending in a shrill falsetto and 
 echoed by a high soprano laugh, rich and mellow, 
 aroused her. From the rear of the house emerged 
 black Sam and Lucy, the colored kitchen-maid, who 
 cut across from the kitchen-grounds and started up 
 the northwest path, pushing each other, dancing and 
 cavorting over the roadway like a pair of nervous 
 monkeys, as Mrs. Rensselaer expressed it to herself. 
 Such loose care of the servants was most repre- 
 
 136
 
 A MAD TWILIGHT 137 
 
 hensible in Mrs. Rensselaer s mind, and she meant 
 to speak sharply to the housekeeper about it. She 
 was highly indignant that they should be allowed to 
 wander off in that way. She had half a notion to 
 call to them, and would have done so except for her 
 distaste of personal conflict with such animals. 
 
 New voices claimed her attention and awakened 
 her still more. She leaned forward and peered over 
 the edge of the balcony. Young Rensselaer and 
 Elsie White came strolling from toward the back 
 of the house, talking quite earnestly, and struck out 
 into the southwest roadway. Mrs. Rensselaer stif 
 fened. It was perfectly disgraceful of Herbert so 
 far to forget his station in life. There was no 
 telling what influence this designing young person 
 might bring to bear upon him! If Herbert had not 
 intelligence enough to watch out for himself, some 
 one ought to look after him. The boy was throw 
 ing away the chance of a lifetime, here under the 
 same roof with the richest girl in the world. 
 
 Still new voices smote upon her ear. From the 
 front porch Phillip and Lillian stepped down and 
 strode up the northwest path, Lillian clinging to 
 Phillip s arm and chattering volubly, even excitedly. 
 Mrs. Rensselaer, estimable lady, arose at once. 
 
 " How indiscreet ! " she murmured. " I must see 
 that the dear child is instantly chaperoned." 
 
 She went quickly down the stairs, hastily selected
 
 138 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 a light wrap from the hall-tree, and hurried out. 
 To her annoyance, however, she caught the lace of 
 her wrap in the catch of the screen-door, and was 
 occupied some minutes in releasing it. When she 
 had finally loosed herself, Lillian and Phillip had 
 so complete a start of her that they were lost to 
 view. For perhaps twenty minutes she followed 
 them, marveling how swiftly the twilight had set 
 tled down, and beginning to feel an eeriness which 
 made its first impression in compelling her to draw 
 her wrap more closely about her. She was just 
 upon the point of turning back, torn between her 
 fear and her desire to prevent Phillip and Lillian 
 from coming to some understanding that might de 
 stroy her hopes for her nephew, when, at a turn 
 in the road, she saw them under the dim avenue of 
 trees, just ahead of her. 
 
 Even as she looked she saw Lillian suddenly turn 
 and throw her arms about Phillip. For a moment 
 she stopped to gasp, and then hurried on with an 
 intention born of anger. What had really happened 
 was that Lillian had stepped upon a loose, round 
 stone and had slightly turned her foot. Instantly 
 she had wheeled and clutched at Phillip for support, 
 clasping him by the arm and throwing the other up 
 over his shoulder; and then, the wrenched ankle 
 forgotten, she had clung to him in ecstasy for a full
 
 A MAD TWILIGHT 139 
 
 moment which seemed an age. The catch in her 
 voice had become a single sob. 
 
 When Mrs. Rensselaer reached them she found 
 Phillip erect. He had done no more than to clasp 
 Lillian as he might to steady her, but he was pale 
 and trembling, though this she could not see in the 
 darkness. 
 
 " I beg your pardon," said Mrs. Rensselaer 
 coldly; "I seem to be interrupting something of 
 an entirely personal nature." 
 
 " Appearances are deceitful," replied Phillip, 
 laughing, and concealing the tremulousness of his 
 voice as best he could. " I fancy that Miss Lillian 
 has sprained her ankle, and I think that she is faint." 
 
 "If Miss Lillian were to choose less dim paths 
 for her strolls she would not be in such danger," 
 quoth Mrs. Rensselaer dryly. " As her chaperon, I 
 must ask both of you to be a little more circumspect 
 in the future ; and as her friend, I must return with 
 her to the house, and see what we can do for that 
 sprained ankle. Come with me, Lillian." 
 
 She led the girl away unresisting. " Her limp was 
 slight, but she tottered as she walked ; her hand, as 
 Mrs. Rensselaer took it and put it in her arm, was 
 flaccid and cold with moisture, and for the first time 
 in her life she obeyed every suggestion of Mrs. 
 Rensselaer s as if she had been a child. Mrs.
 
 140 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Rensselaer looked back, expecting Phillip to come 
 with them and offer to assist Lillian home, but he 
 stood in the same spot, numbed, not even thinking. 
 His mind was a blank except for the tumult of emo 
 tions that seethed within him. 
 
 He had a rude awakening from this attitude. 
 Mrs. Rensselaer and Lillian had no sooner turned 
 the bend in the road than a tall, gaunt form sprang 
 from among the shrubbery at the roadside. Strong, 
 lank hands clutched Phillip by the shoulders and 
 shook him, and a lean face with prominent cheek 
 bones confronted his own closely, while a pair of 
 eyes, phosphorescent in the dimness, like a cat s, 
 blazed into his. 
 
 " Let her alone ! " hissed the voice of Blagg. 
 " You don t care for her. Let her alone ! " 
 
 "Take your hands from my shoulders!" com 
 manded Phillip firmly, offering as yet no resistance 
 except in his tenseness of muscle. 
 
 " Let her alone, I say ! " repeated Blagg fiercely, 
 and, spasmodically tightening his clutch, he once 
 more tried to shake Phillip, but this time shook his 
 own frailer body; for Phillip had stiffened himself. 
 
 " I ll give you just one more second of warn 
 ing," cautioned Phillip, drawing up his arms and 
 clenching his fists. 
 
 Neither one had time for parley, however, for a 
 huge black shape hurled itself upon Blagg, like a
 
 A MAD TWILIGHT 141 
 
 whirlwind, huge black fingers seized him by the 
 throat, and a huge black body bore him to the 
 ground. There was a rattle in Blagg s throat ; above 
 his face was bent the face of big Sam, distorted al 
 most out of all semblance to humanity, and he was 
 snarling like a wild beast, displaying huge yellow 
 teeth ; his eyes had suddenly gone bloodshot, and he 
 was shaking his head from side to side, as the ringers 
 of his enormous hands kneaded themselves more and 
 more into the throat of Blagg. 
 
 The whole thing had occupied but an instant, and 
 yet there was such imminent danger that Kelvin 
 sprang forward in fright. 
 
 " Sam ! " he cried. " Sam ! Sam ! Sam ! " he 
 repeated over and over, shouting and screaming it 
 into his ear, grabbing his shoulders and pulling him 
 back; but Sam neither felt nor heard. In despera 
 tion, to save Blagg s life, Phillip hauled back and 
 gave the negro a resounding kick in the side. With 
 a loud aspirated " Huh ! " Sam suddenly relaxed, 
 but still his heavy body hung poised over that of 
 Blagg, with his weight upon the man s throat ; now, 
 however, it was no task for Kelvin, stooping down, 
 to topple Sam over. As he did so Lucy came flying 
 from the hillside, and, bending over Sam, let loose 
 upon Kelvin such a flood of vituperation as he had 
 never heard before, at the same time pillowing Sam s 
 head upon her arm. Sam, recovering himself
 
 142 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 with marvelous quickness, stopped her flow of lan 
 guage by the simple expedient of clapping a broad 
 palm over her mouth and holding her head against 
 that gag by pressing his other hand at the back of 
 her neck; and for once, Lucy, as she scrambled to 
 her feet, taken by surprise in the quick succession 
 of events, was overcome and had no words. 
 
 Phillip, in the meantime, had bent over Blagg and 
 loosened his collar, and was fanning him. " Sam," 
 said he sharply, " there is a spring down there in 
 the ravine; hurry and get some water in your hat." 
 
 " Ah hope Ah ain t done gone an done no dam 
 age to im, Mistuh Phillip," said Sam contritely. 
 " Ah suah done f ohgot when to leave go ; but Ah 
 jes cain stan to see no one tetch yo , Mistuh 
 Phillip." 
 
 " Hurry and get that water," ordered Phillip. 
 " Remember, Sam, next time, to give me a chance 
 to handle my own difficulties." 
 
 " Yas, sah," said Sam as he plunged over the 
 bank. 
 
 He brought water, but it took some time to revive 
 Blagg. When he rose to his feet there was a little 
 trickle of blood running from the corner of his 
 mouth, and Phillip offered him a handkerchief. 
 
 " Never mind," said Blagg, waving it away. He 
 was quite himself, and refused any assistance. He 
 started toward the house, wiping his lips with his
 
 A MAD TWILIGHT 143 
 
 own handkerchief and feeling his neck. He stag 
 gered for a few paces, then squared his shoulders 
 and walked sturdily away. 
 
 Phillip looked at Sam and Lucy, standing together 
 abashed before him, with huge distaste. " We re a 
 pack of wildcats," he said. " But, after all," and 
 he looked about him at the darkening woods, " we 
 are in the right place for it. Back to nature, back 
 to savagery ! "
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SUMNER ROLLINS ACCEPTS THE DICTATORSHIP OE 
 THE LARGEST EMPIRE IN THE WORLD 
 
 PHILLIP having seen Rollins safely away, 
 walked into Breed s study confidently the 
 next morning. " It is going to cost you 
 something to get those proxies, whether you at 
 tempt your impossible plan of subsidizing the news 
 papers or whether you go about it in some other 
 way," he declared. 
 
 " I am quite willing that it should," replied Breed. 
 " I expect it to cost me a great many millions, even 
 if a plan can be devised by which we can manage it." 
 
 " I can t tell you how to subsidize the newspapers, 
 but I know how to subsidize the public," said Phil 
 lip with a smile, and handed Breed a sheet of paper. 
 
 Breed glanced at it and elevated his eyebrows, 
 then he whistled. " This is going to cost an enor 
 mous amount of money," he declared. 
 
 " It would seem so at first," admitted Phillip ; 
 " but here are the figures," and he handed Breed 
 another sheet of paper. 
 
 Breed studied this latter long and earnestly, then 
 
 144
 
 SUMNER ROLLINS ACCEPTS 145 
 
 he rose and gave Kelvin his hand. " Young man," 
 he exclaimed, " if Heaven had only blessed me with 
 a son or a grandson like you ! " 
 
 " It is a pity that your granddaughter was not 
 born a boy," suggested Phillip. 
 
 Breed shook his head and sighed. " It is a gift 
 that she was not," he replied. " That is the only 
 family luck for which I have to be thankful. No 
 human being susceptible to emotion or sentiment 
 can ever rise to great achievement ! " 
 
 Phillip colored slightly, and Breed s sharp eyes 
 caught the flush. He raised a warning ringer. 
 
 " Remember, young man," said he, " that it is in 
 youth these things must be fought. Were it not 
 for that, old age would have no chance in this world 
 for preferment. In the meantime, go ahead with 
 your scheme of subsidy. At what time does 
 your plan include making the attempt for proxies? " 
 
 " Within two weeks," replied Kelvin. " If you 
 will excuse me I will put this on the wire at once." 
 
 With some curiosity, remembering the events of 
 the night before, he went into Blagg s room. Blagg 
 looked up as if nothing had ever happened, though 
 the effort was hard to convey in view of the black- 
 and-blue marks on his neck. 
 
 " Good morning," said Kelvin, equally willing to 
 ignore what was finished. " Here is some stuff I 
 wish to get off."
 
 146 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Blagg looked it over, then read it more carefully 
 and nodded his head. " This is your scheme," he 
 declared familiarly. " Of course there is an ul 
 terior motive behind it, but even so, this is an act 
 that will work real good to the people, and it will 
 operate in Breed s favor when the day of account 
 ing comes." 
 
 " The day of accounting? " repeated Phillip. 
 
 " Yes," replied Blagg. " There is always a day 
 of reckoning, isn t there? " 
 
 " Possibly," agreed Phillip dryly. " In the mean 
 time, you might get the message away." 
 
 He was about to leave the room, when Blagg 
 called to him : 
 
 " By the way, Mr. Kelvin, I hope you will not 
 hold last night too much against me. We had 
 some wine at dinner in the housekeeper s dining- 
 room, and I broke my rule and drank some of it. 
 It affects me too strongly. I shall have to leave it 
 alone. I am very sorry that atrocious occurrence 
 happened." 
 
 " So am I," agreed Phillip. " Since you had the 
 worst of the bargain, however, I shall not exact any 
 painful apologies." 
 
 Blagg made a wry face. Whether it was a smile 
 or not, Phillip could not tell, but he smiled to him 
 self as he returned to his own office. The excuse 
 that Blagg had been drinking was too transparent
 
 SUMNER ROLLINS ACCEPTS 147 
 
 for credence, nor could he comprehend the passions 
 which had led the operator so thoroughly to lose 
 his balance. Without self-urged emotions himself, 
 to any appreciable degree, he could not understand 
 them in others, but nevertheless he was resolved 
 that Blagg should have no more cause for such in 
 sane exhibitions; this not because of Blagg, but 
 because of himself. The incident of the night be 
 fore had shown him that he had a trace of weak 
 ness which must be guarded, if he was to carry out 
 the limitless ambition that was in his mind. 
 
 For the ensuing month there was a new order 
 of things. Phillip had never sought Lillian, but 
 now he avoided her persistently. Young Rensse- 
 laer, having passed some bad half-hours with his 
 aunt, compromised for the sake of peace, and de 
 voted himself to Lillian, who made matters easy for 
 him had he really desired to follow out his aunt s 
 wishes, for she strove now to make Phillip jealous. 
 She was wasting her time in that effort, for Phillip 
 had in hand what were to him much graver matters. 
 
 The propaganda he had put forth soon began to 
 bear results. Breed would not say how well 
 pleased he was with the outcome as clippings began 
 to pour in from the bureau of his New Jersey of 
 fices, but secretly he was delighted, and daily he 
 went down into the vault and gloated over the 
 money that was there. Meanwhile Phillip delved
 
 148 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 into fresh statistics, covering wider and still wider 
 plans of which Breed knew nothing and Blagg 
 practised upon his combination lock ! 
 
 The name of Breed w r as now upon every lip. It 
 had always been, for that matter, but in terms of 
 execration. Now that sentiment was tempered. 
 There were thousands of columns of editorials 
 printed about him and his great philanthropic move 
 ment. Fully half the papers declared that he had 
 an ulterior motive; a large number of them found 
 the true one, and lost no time in pointing it out with 
 the utmost scorn; but the great fact remained that 
 the boon which he had promised the people had 
 gone into immediate effect, and that every man in 
 the United States reaped an immediate and direct 
 benefit. A complete revulsion of feeling toward 
 Breed set in. In the customary haste with which 
 the American public turns upon its own opinions, 
 Breed became a saint overnight : in his old age he 
 had developed a large heart ; he was bent upon mak 
 ing his peace with his Creator; he was now restor 
 ing to the public a part of the inheritance of which 
 he had so enormously robbed it; he was really, at 
 bottom, and always had been, a great and good and 
 generous man! Were not the poor, as well as the 
 rich, now his daily beneficiaries ? 
 
 Phillip s plan had been very simple. It was
 
 SUMNER ROLLINS ACCEPTS 149 
 
 merely the issuance to the newspapers of this 
 proclamation : 
 
 Beginning to-morrow, the price of bread, of the 
 same weight and quality as heretofore, will be re 
 duced, throughout the United States, from five to 
 four cents a loaf. This price will continue until 
 a committee, to be selected by the public, can de 
 termine from my books and records the actual cost 
 of bread delivered to the consumer. Immediately 
 upon that investigation bread will be provided at 
 actual cost. I have made my fortune, and desire 
 no more. From this day on, my bread- factories 
 shall be run in the interest of the public alone. 
 
 HENRY BREED. 
 
 There it was bread at cost ! It was the most 
 tremendous sensation that had ever been given space 
 in the papers since Breed had completed his con 
 solidation of all the cereal food industries in the 
 United States. No argument could hold against 
 that. It was an argument which was additionally 
 clenched every time a man bought six loaves of 
 bread for a quarter and received a penny in change. 
 
 At exactly the psychological moment Phillip 
 launched his campaign for the control of railroad 
 stocks, and for thirty days there waged the great
 
 150 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 battle of the proxies, a battle no less bitter because 
 silent, no less ferocious because unseen, no less re 
 lentless because there was no bloodshed. 
 
 The forces allied with Rollins themselves at 
 tempted publicity. They sent out appeal after ap 
 peal to the conservative investors, that enormous 
 army of minor stock-holders who were the real con 
 trolling interest, if they once could be massed, of 
 all the roads; they sent arguments, statistics, and, 
 finally, broadside after broadside of attacks, per 
 sonal and economic, dignified and scurrilous, against 
 Breed. But against their publicity Breed had put 
 an enormous practical benefit ; against their appeals 
 he had put an enormous practical benefit; against 
 their attacks he had put an enormous practical 
 benefit; and the tide of public favor, springing not 
 from the printed pages of the morning and after 
 noon papers, but from lip to lip, set in so strongly 
 in his direction that it reached every investor. 
 Bread at four cents! Later at cost! 
 
 To the victor belongs the spoils, and the spoils 
 of this war were the proxies. Breed got the prox 
 ies, and through personal representatives from his 
 New Jersey offices he walked into one meeting after 
 another with a majority of stock. He had suc 
 ceeded, through Kelvin, in that apparently impos 
 sible dream of every railroad man since Stephenson 
 invented the steam-engine the concentration of
 
 SUMNER ROLLINS ACCEPTS 151 
 
 every railroad in the United States under one man 
 agement. Then he sent for Rollins. 
 
 " .Well, I kept my word," said Breed. " I told 
 you I meant to have control of every mile of rail 
 road in the United States, and now I have it. I 
 have sent for you to take over their management." 
 
 Rollins was pale, and there were dark rings under 
 his eyes. " I don t know if I want it. There is 
 only one condition under which I could accept, and 
 it would be folly in me to expect you to grant me 
 that." 
 
 " You might mention it," observed Breed dryly. 
 
 " The condition is that I may do as I see fit, may 
 work absolutely unhampered. Man," he suddenly 
 burst forth, " you don t know how many years I 
 have dreamed of this! It has been the ambition of 
 my life to put this great public utility upon the 
 plane of its proper relation to the public." 
 
 " That is my own dream," Breed declared. 
 
 Rollins shrugged his shoulders incredulously. 
 
 "You don t believe it?" inquired Breed. 
 
 " I find belief difficult," replied Rollins. " More 
 over, I had imagined that Mr. Kelvin here was to 
 have some say in the matter of management." 
 
 Breed smiled and looked at Phillip. " I have 
 larger work for him," he said. 
 
 " Larger ! " exclaimed Rollins. " Can there be 
 anything bigger than to combine a quarter of a
 
 152 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 million miles of railroad, every foot of transporta 
 tion highway in the United States, under one 
 economic head, eliminating graft and waste and put 
 ting them all upon a working basis of legitimate 
 profit and public safety? " 
 
 Breed waved his hand. " Much larger," said he. 
 " This is only an incident. I wish you would tell 
 me just what reforms you propose instituting, Mr. 
 Rollins." 
 
 " First of all," said Rollins earnestly, reassured, 
 " I would secure for every through line one-hun- 
 dred-and-twenty-pound, open-hearth steel rails, 
 made in new mills from larger ingots, with the 
 cones of impurity cast entirely aside and the com 
 pact residue kneaded into a proper consistency by 
 an entirely new system of rolls. There are other 
 things that need to be done the establishment of 
 perfect block systems, of automatic brakes and 
 other accident-preventing devices, and the abolition 
 of grade crossings but the main matter of public 
 safety rests in perfect rails. Ten years ago I tried 
 to fight this proposition, and I nearly succeeded. 
 The Tallahassee Iron and Coal Company offered to 
 make open-hearth rails to my specifications. They 
 had the ore, the process, and the nucleus of the 
 mills ; but they would have had a monopoly. They 
 would either have driven the Unified Steel Corpora 
 tion out of the business, or have compelled them to
 
 SUMNER ROLLINS ACCEPTS 153 
 
 adopt the open-hearth process, the only present pro 
 cess of manufacture which produces steel without 
 dangerous brittleness. The Unified Steel Corpora 
 tion found that to control the stock of the Talla 
 hassee Iron and Coal Company was much cheaper 
 and more profitable than to spend the needed mil 
 lions in reequipping their plant, and it was a then 
 high government official who enabled them to gain 
 control by refusing a needed federal injunction. 
 That official, through this one act, was directly re 
 sponsible for the loss of a hundred thousand lives." 
 
 Your first step, then, I suppose, would be to be 
 gin a fight on the Unified Steel Corporation," ob 
 served Breed. 
 
 * That, in a nutshell, is our problem," declared 
 Rollins. 
 
 " Your problem is already solved, Mr. Rollins," 
 said Kelvin with a smile. " Mr. Breed s control of 
 the railroads has left the Unified Steel Corporation 
 high and dry. The panic compelled even them to 
 release stock which would have hampered us had 
 they been able to hold it. They know that they 
 are beaten, for if they do not produce the precise 
 product which we want they know that we will re 
 fuse them not only patronage, but transportation. 
 Moreover, we have secured entire control of the 
 Iroquois Iron Range; and no matter what the Uni 
 fied Steel Corporation does, we shall set up our own
 
 154 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 rolling-mills and make rails by our own process, 
 from our own ore. The establishment of these 
 mills, in the way you want them, and the making 
 of steel rails according to your own specifications, 
 would probably be your first move." 
 
 " But the program will be left entirely to your 
 own discretion," interrupted Breed. " You shall 
 have a contract for one year, renewable for ten 
 years if your preliminary steps meet with my 
 approval." 
 
 " Allow me to understand," said Rollins. " In 
 that year I am to be absolutely without interference 
 in any way ? " 
 
 " With two exceptions," replied Breed. " I want 
 a private rebate on all shipments of bread or cereal 
 stuffs. Next, here is a list of names. These men 
 are not to be employed in any capacity nor benefited 
 in any way." 
 
 Rollins looked over the list and smiled. " There 
 isn t a man here whom I would lift a finger to save. 
 There is not a man in that list but has had an in 
 terest in a car company, a coupler company, a brake 
 company, a locomotive-tire company, or some other 
 manufacturing concern which furnished supplies to 
 his ow r n railroad at enormous prices. There is to 
 be no graft in the new construction." 
 
 " Certainly not ! " agreed Breed. " These roads 
 must be conducted for legitimate profit and public
 
 SUMNER ROLLINS ACCEPTS 155 
 
 safety. If there is any graft I want it myself; and 
 I am content to take dividends for mine." 
 
 Rollins shrugged his shoulders. " That is a mat 
 ter for your directorate. I don t want to be both 
 ered with that part of the financing." 
 
 " Then go ahead/ said Breed. " For one year 
 you are the absolute dictator of the largest empire 
 in the world, the combined railroads of the United 
 States." 
 
 "Will you put that in writing?" asked Rollins. 
 
 Breed looked at Kelvin. 
 
 " It is already written," said the latter, and from 
 his desk he took a contract, confined to one sheet of 
 paper, which he handed to Rollins. 
 
 That gentleman took the paper, read it over, and 
 caught his breath. " It is a generous salary," he 
 admitted ; " more generous than I should have dared 
 to ask for." 
 
 "Huh! I am saving money on it," declared 
 Breed. " It s only a portion of a thousand fancy 
 salaries that I expect you to stop at once." 
 
 Rollins nodded his head in comprehension. " I 
 will take great pleasure in stopping a few of them." 
 
 Breed rubbed his hands slowly together in satis 
 faction. " As soon as you like," he returned. 
 " Mr. Kelvin will show you his very clever plan 
 for dispensing with interstate-commerce- and anti- 
 combination-law interference, and will make you at
 
 156 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 home as a part of our official family at Forest Lakes. 
 Of course you -will have offices wherever you like, 
 but you will have a personal office here, too, with 
 such assistance as you need, that you can visit when 
 necessary. I, myself, do not intend to go to the 
 city any more." 
 
 Kelvin conducted Rollins to a room, next to his 
 own, that had been fitted with a commodious desk 
 and all that should go with it. It was the first time 
 Phillip had been in this apartment. When he had 
 first come to Forest Lakes he had wondered to find, 
 in this new wing of the building, an office so per 
 fectly equipped as his own. He had noticed no 
 preparations in the past few weeks, and yet here 
 was another office equipped with every needful ap 
 pointment. Rollins sat upon the desk and looked 
 about him smilingly. 
 
 " Looks fairly complete, doesn t it ? Did you 
 have a hand in this? " 
 
 " No," said Kelvin, puzzled and piqued as well. 
 " It has been arranged for a long time, I think. 
 Mr. Breed has probably been planning to make 
 Forest Lakes the capital of New York City." 
 
 " Perhaps the capital of the United States," re 
 torted Rollins, smiling in answer to the jest. 
 " Who knows ? He has a good start. He has paid 
 a lot of attention to detail, too. Everything is com 
 plete now except for a secretary," and idly he
 
 BUHNER ROLLINS ACCEPTS 157 
 
 touched one of the row of buttons along the right- 
 hand edge of his desk, the one marked " Secretary." 
 
 Instantly the door of the adjoining room opened, 
 and a sober-faced and non-committal-looking young 
 man, ruddy-cheeked and clean-eyed and tow-headed, 
 walked in, note-book in hand. 
 
 " Hello," said Rollins. " Who are you? " 
 
 " I am your secretary, sir. I came last night. 
 My name is Jens Nelson." 
 
 " Swedish, eh ? " guessed Rollins. 
 
 " Yes, sir," said Mr. Nelson. " I am a graduate 
 of the Minnesota Technical College, founded by 
 Mr. Breed, and am one of his scholarship men." 
 
 Rollins smiled over the naivete of this admission. 
 It was quite evident that he had, as his most in 
 timate man of affairs, a youth who owed so strong 
 an allegiance to Breed that he could never be won 
 to allegiance to any one else. Oh, well ; he welcomed 
 such espionage. His acts were going to bear in 
 spection; only, he would leave Mr. Nelson in charge 
 of the seldom-visited Forest Lakes headquarters. 
 
 " All right, Mr. Nelson," said he. " You have a 
 telegraph operator here, I believe, Mr. Kelvin." 
 
 " Wireless," amended Phillip. 
 
 Rollins glanced at his row of buttons and nodded 
 his head. " I see," said he, " but I was not sure 
 that it was yet in operation. Mr. Nelson, you may 
 take these Marconigrams," and without any hesita-
 
 158 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 tion he began dictating peremptory discharges to a 
 long list of railroad officials. 
 
 Thus set in the new empire the empire of the 
 iron highways ; an empire which held under its 
 absolute control the commercial destinies of the na 
 tion; an empire more powerful than any ever con 
 ceived by man; an empire which could build a city 
 or could isolate one from the world, which could 
 ruin a business or wax it fat, like a gourd upon its 
 vine; against whose edict there could be no appeal; 
 to whose progress there could be no resistance; 
 whose tentacles were fastened upon every city and 
 village and hamlet, upon every farm and mine and 
 forest, upon every capitalist, merchant, farmer, and 
 laborer in the United States; and those powerful 
 tentacles could either suck the life-blood from all 
 these municipalities, institutions, and men, or could 
 feed them. It was a reign that began peacefully 
 and quietly as the stern Rollins, with a smile, 
 dispossessed half a thousand men from their fat 
 sinecures ; but as he worked, Henry Breed, attended 
 by Doctor Zelphan and carrying a bundle of golf- 
 sticks, stopped in the door a moment. 
 
 " By the way, Rollins," said he, " there is only 
 one personal provision I wish to make, and that 
 must be seen to from the first. I want my divi 
 dends all in cash. Nothing else, understand; just 
 cash!"
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 DOCTOR ZELPHAN PENETRATES THE BILLION DOLLAR 
 VAULT AND INDULGES IN WRATH 
 
 THE only portion of Doctor Zelphan s coun 
 tenance visible through his wealth of red 
 beard and mustache was his nose, and that 
 portion was highly inflamed, for the doctor was 
 angry. Three times he paced the length of the 
 broad front porch, and each time he passed the open 
 hallway door he looked in and scowled. Finally, 
 with sudden determination, he was about to enter, 
 when he saw striding with a free step, from around 
 a clump of bushes that bordered a curve in the 
 main driveway, the familiar figure of Sumner Rol 
 lins. Though still in an ill humor, he waited for 
 Rollins, and peered at that gentleman through his 
 thick spectacles with as pleasant an expression as 
 he could assume under the circumstances. 
 
 " Glorious morning," began Rollins as he neared 
 the steps. 
 
 He was in particularly good trim after an ab 
 sence of some months, and though he had just 
 
 159
 
 160 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 walked a matter of six miles or more, except for the 
 dust on his shoes he was as precise and clean, with 
 his white tie and freshly pressed clothing, as if he 
 had just come from his apartments. 
 
 " I came down rather unexpectedly," he went on, 
 as he kicked his shoes against the bottom step 
 and walked up on the porch. " The air w T as 
 so deliciously invigorating when I got off at the 
 station that I could not resist walking over." 
 
 The doctor had shaken hands with Rollins more 
 genially than he had thought for the moment to be 
 within his range of feeling, for, after all, he liked 
 Rollins. " Walking is good for you," he said. 
 " You have a long life before you if you will just 
 w : atch your liver. That s your weak spot." 
 
 " So I have been told," replied Rollins, laughing, 
 as they started to go in. " I suppose Kelvin s in 
 his office?" 
 
 " No," said the doctor rather shortly, " Mr. 
 Kelvin is not in his office. He is out with Mrs. 
 Rensselaer and young Rensselaer and Miss Breed, 
 fishing! " There was no explaining the contempt 
 with which Doctor Zelphan jerked out that last 
 word. " Fishing! " he repeated with the utmost 
 scorn. " Fishing in a private lake for pet fish that 
 come up to be fed when they are called ! " 
 
 " It doesn t sound much like sport," confessed
 
 ZELPHAN INDULGES IN WRATH 161 
 
 Rollins; " but after all, I envy them. Where is Mr. 
 Breed?" 
 
 Again the frown returned that all the morning 
 had crossed Doctor Zelphan s brow. " I don t 
 know," he snapped ; " but he is some place about 
 the house. I ll find him for you." 
 
 " There s no hurry," returned Rollins easily. 
 "If you see either Mr. Kelvin or Mr. Breed before 
 I get word to them kindly say that I am here." 
 
 " I m going to hunt Mr. Breed anyhow," declared 
 Zelphan savagely, and following Rollins into the hall 
 he stepped into Henry Breed s dim old library, 
 slamming the door behind him. Rollins glanced at 
 the door with a laugh as he started up the broad 
 stairway. Doctor Zelphan and his irascibility had 
 always amused him. Going back through the upper 
 hall, Rollins stopped for a moment in Blagg s room, 
 where the wireless operator sat idly at his instru 
 ment, the greenish light giving to his gaunt features 
 a particularly deathlike ghastliness, especially as the 
 man sat perfectly motionless with his eyes upturned 
 to the ceiling. 
 
 " Gad, Blagg! I wish you would put pink glass 
 around those tubes ! " exclaimed Rollins with an 
 involuntary shudder. " That whole tableau sug 
 gests the resurrection morn, with you headed in the 
 wrong direction."
 
 " I ll be headed with the crowd, then," returned 
 Blagg; " but I am afraid we won t have your com 
 pany if you keep on receiving this kind of protests 
 from this sort of people," and he handed Rollins 
 two wireless messages which the latter read with a 
 passing frown. One was signed by the head of an 
 immense packing-house in Chicago, the other by the 
 president of the largest fruit-shipping company on 
 the western coast. To both he dictated the same 
 curt reply: 
 
 " Discussion positively closed." 
 
 Blagg read the answers with a grim smile. " Al 
 low me to congratulate you," said he. " You may 
 not know it, but you are doing splendid preliminary 
 work for the social equity cause." 
 
 "The preliminary work?" repeated Rollins. 
 " How do you think it will be finished ? " 
 
 " In violence," returned Blagg with a darkening; 
 brow. 
 
 Rollins shrugged his shoulders. " Violent con 
 versation, largely, I guess," he rejoined. 
 
 Blagg s eyes snapped. " Deeds ! " he declared. 
 " Let inequality and oppression go on for but a short 
 time more, and there will be such a revolt from the 
 darker depths of this country as not even France 
 has ever known. There exists, even now, a close 
 organization of the under-dogs who are ready at a
 
 ZELPHAN INDULGES IN WRATH 163 
 
 word to rise and undo the wrongs to which justice 
 has grown blind." 
 
 " You seem to know a lot about it," commented 
 Rollins. 
 
 Blagg calmed down his excitement with an effort. 
 <: I keep fairly well posted," said he. " Among 
 other things I know that there is a branch of that 
 organization which needs just such men as you." 
 
 " I am rather busy as it is," returned Rollins 
 dryly, and walked over to his own office. He had 
 not been in it for months; he had never occupied it 
 for more than two days at a time, and yet, when 
 he pushed the button upon his desk for his secretary, 
 that white-haired and self-contained young man 
 walked in from the adjoining apartment, note-book 
 in hand, as commonplacely as if this were the begin 
 ning of the regular morning grind. 
 
 " Have you prepared the data I asked you to get 
 ready, Nelson ? " inquired Rollins. 
 
 " Yes, sir," replied Nelson. He walked across to 
 a filing-cabinet, brought from it a drawer which 
 he set upon Rollins desk and lifted up the spring. 
 Rollins leafed through the indexed flaps, beneath 
 which, very carefully arranged, were displayed the 
 mileage distances, by various routes, between all 
 important points in the United States, with the per 
 centage of grade resistance figured in units, these,
 
 1 64 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 compounded with the mileage, showing the ultimate 
 hauling resistance. It had been a tremendous task ; 
 it was neatly and perfectly accomplished ; yet Nelson 
 showed neither elation nor diffidence. 
 
 " This is splendidly done," observed Rollins after 
 a long interval of careful inspection. 
 
 " Thank you," said Nelson quietly. 
 
 Rollins glanced up at him with puzzled curiosity. 
 He saw nothing but an absolutely placid and expres 
 sionless face. " That will do just now 7 ," said he 
 with a slight frown; and Jens walked composedly 
 into his own room, a fathomless enigma to Rollins. 
 
 In the meantime, Doctor Zelphan, crossing the 
 library, paused before the door at the far side of the 
 fireplace, and, after a moment of frowning hesita 
 tion, resolutely thrust open the door and entered. 
 To his surprise Henry Breed was not there. For 
 a moment he stood nonplussed. He knew that Breed 
 had not gone out into the grounds, because he had 
 watched for him, and he had made a through search 
 of the house. He gazed around the room curiously. 
 It had once been fitted up as a bedroom, and, indeed, 
 a small iron bed, unused except for noonday naps, 
 stilj stood in one corner. The main use of the 
 room, however, was as an adjunct to the library. 
 Here Breed had a small private desk; and here, let 
 into the wall where the fireplace should have been, 
 was a small safe.
 
 ZELPHAN INDULGES IN WRATH 165 
 
 In the corner of the room, on the same side as the 
 safe, a door stood open, and Zelphan, with an angry 
 determination to see everything here, approached 
 that closet. Its rear wall was hung with clothing, 
 a golf-outfit and such minor garments as Breed 
 might wish to change during the daytime; but the 
 closet struck Zelphan as of an odd shape, being 
 much deeper at one end than the other. He put his 
 hand upon the rear wall at the deeper side, and it 
 yielded to his touch, swinging backward into a nar 
 row space from which came a damp odor and a 
 faint gleam of light. 
 
 " So," said Doctor Zelphan aloud, and imme 
 diately he squeezed back .into the narrow space and 
 descended the two flights of narrow stairs to the big 
 vault, the existence of which he .had never even sus 
 pected. In the center of the vault, \vith the light 
 from a cluster of electric bulbs gleaming down upon 
 his bald -head, with one of the many iron drawers 
 upon his knees, and with an old, well-thumbed Bible 
 on the bench at his side, sat Henry Breed. In his 
 hands was a package of the paper money with which 
 the drawer was filled, and he was gazing, rapt, at 
 the opposite side of the vault. He turned with 
 out surprise toward the familiar figure of Doc 
 tor Zelphan, and chuckled as he patted the drawer. 
 
 " This is the first row on all that side to be filled," 
 said he. " I began at the lower corner there. All
 
 166 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 the other rows are empty, but they ll fill up; they ll 
 fill up;" and he nodded his head in satisfaction. 
 " Those other sides were filled by the bread business, 
 but this is railroad dividends, in cash, solid cash! " 
 
 Doctor Zelphan was looking about him in amaze 
 ment. " There must be millions here ! " he gasped. 
 
 " Millions ? " cackled Breed, his wrinkled old face 
 breaking into a leathery smile. " There s over a 
 billion and a half " 
 
 Suddenly, as he looked at the doctor, he stopped 
 and began to tremble. It had just dawned upon 
 him that this was the first time Zelphan had ever 
 visited this vault; indeed, the first time that he had 
 even known about it. " How did you come here? " 
 he cried. " You were told that that little room up 
 stairs was my strictly private study, that I wished 
 no one to come into it." 
 
 " Exactly," agreed Zelphan dryly ; " but now that 
 I have found the way, I am coming whenever you 
 do, or I am not going to stay at Forest Lakes." 
 
 "Don t go away, Doctor!" pleaded Breed in 
 sudden fright. " Don t leave me. When you ar 
 rived I was a nervous wreck, but since you came I 
 have been able to do a lot of work; good work, 
 splendid work ! " 
 
 He had laid his hand appealingly upon the doc 
 tor s arm. Zelphan shook it off roughly. 
 
 " That s because you at first did what I told you ;
 
 ZELPHAN INDULGES IN .WRATH 167 
 
 but of late you ve grown careless. You give me the 
 slip every morning now, and I can t find you. 
 When you should be out in the fresh air you are 
 down here in this unhealthy atmosphere with un 
 healthy thoughts, counting money; not the money 
 that you have, but the money you expect to make. 
 I knew that you had torn yourself to pieces in build 
 ing up your immense bread and cereal monopoly, 
 but I hadn t the slightest idea that you were a mere 
 miser." 
 
 That word seemed to restore Breed to his equi 
 librium, for he laughed quite naturally, replaced the 
 package of bills in the drawer, walked over to the 
 corner of the vault, and slid the drawer into place. 
 " A miser, Doctor," he smilingly expostulated, " is 
 a man who hoards his money for its own sake. He 
 never uses it for pleasure or comfort, he never even 
 puts it to work; but this money of mine, by the mere 
 fact of its being here, is a. tremendous dynamo, by 
 the^mighty current of which I can sway almost the 
 entire social and economic universe. To its own 
 good, to its own good ! " he hastily added. " With 
 it, when duly increased, I can right great wrongs, 
 change unjust laws, destroy and build anew entire 
 civilizations, shatter and re-create governments! 
 Think, Doctor! Handled with my experience and 
 the genius of young Kelvin, this money has already 
 bankrupted nearly every enemy I had in the world,
 
 1 68 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 destroyed the iniquity of the New York Stock Ex 
 change, and given me absolute control of every mile 
 of railroad in the United States. No miser s money 
 could have done that." 
 
 " Incidentally," observed Zelphan, " several hun 
 dred thousand people were thrown out of work, a 
 thousand or so starved to death, a few hundred com 
 mitted suicide, and other hundreds deserted their 
 families." 
 
 " For their iniquities the Lord shall bring suffer 
 ing upon His people," solemnly declared Breed, and 
 reached down a nervous hand for his Bible. 
 " Through fire shall they pass to their purification, 
 and mine is the appointed hand ! " 
 
 Zelphan looked at him sternly. " I want you 
 to come out of this place, at once, and stay out," 
 he ordered. 
 
 " No, no ! " objected Breed nervously. " No ! 
 I must come in every day, Doctor just a little 
 while." 
 
 " Yes, I suppose you must," admitted Zelphan, 
 studying the matter in grave silence for a moment. 
 " I ll give you thirty minutes every day ; but some 
 one must be with you." 
 
 " My granddaughter usually comes with me," ex 
 plained Breed. " She is the only one, besides my 
 self, who knows the combination to these locks; and 
 only we four, Lillian and Kelvin and you and I,
 
 ZELPHAN INDULGES IN WRATH 169 
 
 know of its existence. You must guard this secret 
 well, Zelphan." 
 
 " No danger of my telling it," scorned the doctor. 
 " I don t want to ruin any human soul with the 
 knowledge that all this money is here, guarded only 
 by iron bolts and your handful of armed guards. 
 There s a curse on the stuff. More than enough to 
 live on has never done any one any good. Look 
 at yourself." 
 
 "What is the matter with me?" asked Breed 
 quickly. 
 
 "Oh, nothing," said Zelphan quietly; "only you 
 are losing your mind, that is all," and his glance 
 strayed for an instant to the Bible which Breed held 
 clasped beneath his arm. "If you don t keep away 
 from this silent brooding you ll be a jibbering idiot 
 in less than a year; and I shall not remain here to 
 take the blame for it. Unless you obey me im 
 plicitly I shall leave you. I had a notion to do so 
 this morning, but Mr. Rollins came, and I changed 
 my mind." 
 
 " Rollins ! " exclaimed Breed, his fear vanish 
 ing and his shrewdness returning as if by magic. 
 " Is he here ? Good ! I must see him at once," and 
 he hurried out of the vault, waiting impatiently for 
 Zelphan to follow him. 
 
 " You ll do nothing of the sort," asserted Zelphan, 
 closing the door after him.
 
 170 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " Not see Rollins ? Nonsense ! " exclaimed Breed 
 as he threw the bolt and touched the button to turn 
 out the light. " This is important. I must see Rol 
 lins." 
 
 " Important or not, you are coming out with me 
 for a half-hour s walk before you see any one." 
 
 " Then you may go ! " declared Breed, turning on 
 him with sudden senile fury. " Leave Forest 
 Lakes as soon as you like; go now! " 
 
 " I ll not do that either," announced Zelphan 
 flatly. " I m interested now, and I intend to 
 remain."
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 MRS. RENSSELAER, ATTEMPTING TO AROUSE 
 FAMILY PRIDE IN HERBERT,, IS SHOCKED. 
 
 KELVIN, in the bow of the boat, looked at his 
 watch and began reeling in his line. " I 
 am sorry, but I shall have to leave you," 
 said he. " I must be back at the office in fifteen 
 minutes." 
 
 " What s your hurry ? " asked young Rens- 
 selaer. " One would think there was a time- 
 recording clock waiting to stamp your morning 
 ticket." 
 
 Kelvin laughed. " The worst part of loafing is 
 that a loafer wants to convert everybody else to his 
 mode of life," he retorted. " You re not much like 
 the Bar X Bert I used to know in the old cow- 
 punching days, nor even the Herbert Rensselaer 
 who used to make a flying wedge of himself and 
 buck his way to the center of the most agitated 
 group on the floor of the Stock Exchange." 
 
 " No," returned Rensselaer, making a long cast 
 so perfectly that it scarcely jarred the boat. " I 
 have seen the folly of my youth. When, without
 
 172 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 effort, I can enjoy an estate like Forest Lakes and 
 the society of its gracious and charming hostesses," 
 and he bowed extravagantly to the two ladies, 
 whereupon his aunt beamed upon him and Lillian 
 Breed laughed and shrugged her shoulders, " why 
 should I toil?" 
 
 Phillip s hook caught on the oar-lock, and he 
 leaned forward to disengage it. Lillian, sitting just 
 in front of him, deliberately leaned back, though 
 with a pretense of helping him, until her rounded 
 shoulder touched his cheek. She held it there, and 
 with a thrill he became acutely conscious of the 
 warmth of the contact. 
 
 " Don t go," she said, sinking her voice ever so 
 little below its ordinary conversational tone. 
 
 Phillip suddenly drew his cheek away from that 
 insidious touch, angry with himself that, until rea 
 son came to his aid, his blood had leaped to the un 
 spoken call. 
 
 The calm, even voice of Mrs. Rensselaer, who 
 was finding the task of taming the wild Lillian for a 
 social campaign an endless one, broke in upon his 
 momentary confusion. " Lillian, you must remem 
 ber that Mr. Kelvin s sense of duty is never at 
 fault." 
 
 Kelvin winced slightly at that remark. 
 
 " Kelvin s sense of duty is an awe-inspiring and 
 even a fatiguing thing," commented Herbert, fas-
 
 MRS. RENSSELAER IS SHOCKED; 173 
 
 tening his line to the gunwale of the boat and lan 
 guidly picking up the oars. " Heave anchor ! 
 Ahoy ! Also avast and belay ! " 
 
 There was no more languidness in him, however, 
 from the first dip of his oars in the water. Mrs. 
 Rensselaer, sitting in the prow, admired mightily 
 the play of his biceps and the rise and fall of his 
 broad shoulders as he spun the boat swiftly and 
 easily to the shore. Herbert deftly shifted his oars, 
 sprang out at the side, helped his aunt from the 
 boat and drew it farther up on the beach, then of 
 fered his hand to Lillian, who,- barely touching it, 
 poised herself upon the gunwale and sprang, with 
 a splendid muscular effort, far up the bank. As 
 Kelvin stepped out he once more looked at his 
 watch. 
 
 " You will pardon me if I hurry on? " he said. 
 
 " Oh, we are all going," returned Lillian. " It s 
 too late for the fish to bite any more, anyhow." 
 
 Kelvin was already passing her. The bank was 
 very steep at this point, and, although impatient 
 for more than one reason, of necessity he offered 
 to help her. She at once took his arm and hung 
 heavily upon it. Near the top she slipped, and he 
 was compelled to throw his arm hastily about her. 
 She let her shoulders rest limply back in his em 
 brace, and allowed him to drag her dead weight up 
 over the little rise; and Kelvin almost cursed him-
 
 174 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 self aloud, for again he had found that contact 
 more than pleasurable. Impatient with both her 
 and himself, he swung on, as soon as they struck 
 the level roadway, at a rapid pace, but the girl 
 kept abreast of him with a smooth, even stride that 
 he could not help but admire. This thought cross 
 ing his mind, he glanced down at her, as, chatting 
 gaily on a score of nothings, she swung along be 
 side him beneath the arched trees of the beautiful 
 driveway through the woods. Her black hair was 
 \vaved low about her oval face ; her dark eyes were 
 agleam with vivacity; her cheeks, from the fresh 
 morning air and the exercise, wore the glow of a 
 damask rose ; her supple, well-rounded figure moved 
 with a grace that was almost feline ; her gown, elab 
 orate in the artfulness of its construction, though 
 simple to his masculine eyes, cast itself in the breeze 
 into lines of infinite enticement. " After all " 
 Phillip brought himself back to the future with a 
 jerk. " No entanglements with women." That 
 had been the one warning motto he had set for him 
 self, and he must observe it if he would accomplish 
 his boundless ambitions. It had been easy so far, 
 but here, in the isolation of Forest Lakes, in spite of 
 himself thrown much into the company of this 
 blandishing Eve, it was a harder task to keep him 
 self self-centered. Elsie White he found no trouble 
 in resisting, for she avoided him, intuitively feeling
 
 MRS. RENSSELAER IS SHOCKED 175 
 
 herself held aloof, but this was a different matter. 
 Love, he could deny, or at least postpone. His own 
 lusty youth was a more impetuous assailant; and 
 Lillian deliberately enlisted the aid of that lustiness. 
 
 In the meantime Mrs. Rensselaer, puffing from 
 the exertion of being dragged up the bank by Her 
 bert, turned to that young man with severity. 
 " Herbert," she admonished him, " really I think 
 you are neglecting your opportunities most shame 
 fully." 
 
 " I think so myself," he agreed. " If you were 
 to let me alone I could make my way very nicely, 
 and be perfectly happy. I could do anything, from 
 going back on a ranch as head cow-puncher, to in 
 festing a strenuous city office and working my way 
 up." 
 
 " That dreadful Western blood you have in you 
 will sometime drive me mad," she expostulated. 
 " Please remember that you are, after all, a Rens 
 selaer, and the only one of the branch who could 
 restore the family fortune. Do you know that the 
 parvenu who bought the old Rensselaer place on 
 Fifth Avenue was bankrupted in Mr. Kelvin s recent 
 New York operations? The place will be for sale. 
 It is within your reach to make the name of Rens 
 selaer precisely what it used to be." 
 
 " With Miss Breed s money," commented Her 
 bert with ill-concealed disdain. "If I loved her,
 
 1 76 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 or if she herself were capable of love, it would be 
 different." 
 
 " You are perfectly absurd, Herbert," she in 
 sisted. " Lillian is the richest girl in the world. 
 After she is married, her little eccentricities, im 
 possible in a girl, will only enhance her charm. 
 Let me be perfectly frank with you. This girl, 
 while she thinks she has her mind set upon Phillip 
 Kelvin, really wants a husband. I scarcely dare 
 usher her into society unmarried she would dis 
 grace us all ; but any strong man, such as you, could 
 marry her, master her, and make her content, and 
 she would be most presentable. Kelvin is not offer 
 ing her any encouragement just now, but mark my 
 word, he will. If you will exert yourself at once 
 and pay her plenty of attention, she will fall right 
 into your arms." 
 
 " I am afraid that it would be my impulse to step 
 back and let her fall still farther," he declared. 
 
 " You are ungrateful," she charged. " I am 
 making more sacrifices for you than you know." 
 
 For a moment he softened. " I appreciate that 
 you are, and I do seem ungrateful. But I want to 
 work, to carve out my own fortune as Kelvin has 
 done. I am not so clever as he. I could not make 
 a million in five years, as he did, but I could try, 
 which, if you only knew, is a great satisfaction. 
 Instead of that, you make me stop work. You give
 
 MRS. RENSSELAER IS SHOCKED 177 
 
 up practically your whole income to keep me an idler 
 at a few good clubs in New York, between my all 
 too frequent visits here. I d much rather do some 
 thing for myself, and, after all, I don t see how you 
 can consistently object. You are yourself accepting 
 a salary." 
 
 " Herbert ! " she exclaimed, very much shocked. 
 " I am a guest here, and the money I receive from 
 Mr. Breed is the income from investments which he 
 has made for me." 
 
 He laughed. " Ten thousand dollars," said he ; 
 " and on that Breed pays you dividends of ten thou 
 sand a year. It s salary, nothing else." 
 
 " How crude you are ! " she protested. " How 
 do you know that Mr. Breed does not make one 
 hundred per cent on the money I gave him? How 
 do I know? Again I tell you, you are ungrateful." 
 
 " I suppose so," he admitted wearily, " although 
 why one should be compelled to be eternally grateful 
 for an unwelcome and more or less oppressive 
 gift- 
 
 " That will be sufficient ! " she returned, and he 
 lapsed into moody silence. 
 
 As they neared the house, Elsie White, who had 
 been gathering flowers for Lillian s room, went up 
 on the porch, where Rollins met her and stopped 
 to chat with her for a moment. 
 
 " If you must know," Rensselear said, " there is
 
 178 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 an illustration of why the thought of Lillian is so 
 distasteful to me. That s the kind of girl I want to 
 marry." 
 
 " Lillian s maid ! " his aunt exclaimed. " Her 
 bert, you are really past belief." 
 
 " You needn t worry about her ; I don t want that 
 particular one, and if I did I couldn t have her. 
 Her eyes see no one but Phillip. As a matter of 
 fact," and he laughed entirely without bitterness, 
 " there is no use in my considering any girl while 
 Phillip s around. They won t look at me." 
 
 "Nonsense!" returned Mrs. Rensselaer. "If 
 you think that girls have no regard for family you 
 are very much mistaken." 
 
 Herbert made a wry face. " Watch the man 
 of accomplishment, auntie," he advised her. " He 
 can nearly take his pick of the worth-while girls, 
 for, though girls may not recognize the reason, ac 
 complishment means something more than just what 
 one has done; it means fundamental virility." 
 
 " Do you mean to say that if you went to this girl 
 of no class whatever and offered her the Rensselaer 
 name she would refuse you? " 
 
 " She certainly would," replied Herbert promptly. 
 " To her, position means but very little, love means 
 much; and she is beautiful enough to command 
 love ! " 
 
 " She is handsome," reluctantly admitted his
 
 MRS. RENSSELAER IS SHOCKED 179 
 
 aunt ; " but rather vulgarly healthy, don t you 
 think?" 
 
 " God is vulgar in a good many things He does," 
 replied Herbert wearily. " Sunsets and flowers, 
 for instance. Dreadfully loud colors He uses some 
 times." 
 
 Breed, just then, came out and called Rollins into 
 the library where Kelvin was already seated. The 
 old man was almost childish in his admiration of 
 his two lieutenants, as he chose to call them. 
 
 " I have been waiting for years for this," said he, 
 rubbing his clawlike hands together, as he looked 
 from the one to the other of them. " In all my 
 years of money-making my only worry was that 
 when the time came I might not find capable men 
 through which to wield the ultimate power I craved. 
 Like most worry, it was wasted. You two young 
 men have done wonderful work, but it has only just 
 begun." 
 
 " Precisely my errand," said Rollins with a rather 
 wan smile. " The work is only just begun, and at 
 the outset I have found so much opposition that I 
 ran down here for moral support." 
 
 You ve come to the right place," laughed Kel 
 vin. " At Forest Lakes we re dealing almost exclu 
 sively in moral support." 
 
 " Backed by the dead weight of more cash than 
 was ever in one man s control since time began,"
 
 i8o THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 chuckled Breed. " What are your difficulties, Mr. 
 Rollins?" 
 
 " Well," said Rollins, " I have practically put the 
 Unified Steel Corporation out of business, as a 
 monopoly. Here is a communication I had from 
 MacDougal. If ever a big man made a whine in a 
 letter MacDougal is the man, and here is his 
 whine ; " and with huge contempt he tossed down 
 a three-page missive which Kelvin read with a smile. 
 
 " The answer," went on Rollins, " is open-hearth 
 steel and the control of transportation. I have both. 
 As fast as they can make them, the plants I recently 
 installed in Tennessee are turning out one hundred 
 and twenty-pound rails by the open-hearth process. 
 The Unified Steel Corporation is compelled to make 
 what we want or shut up shop. I have put them in 
 direct competition with our own plants, and they 
 are underbidding us. I intend to let them have 
 some large contracts at a price we can not touch. 
 Now I begin to have dreams." 
 
 " I don t see any difficulty in that," laughed Kel 
 vin. " A man doesn t dream many dreams in the 
 face of failures. It s success that brings dreams. 
 I have dreams of my own. I have done a little 
 thinking about these dreams of late." 
 
 " I know you have," interposed Rollins. 
 " Somebody has been doing a great deal of thinking
 
 MRS. RENSSELAER IS SHOCKED 181 
 
 around here. At first I thought It was Mr. Breed, 
 but now I know that he hires his thinking." 
 
 Breed himself was the first to acknowledge by a 
 chuckle the truth of this remark. 
 
 " I used to have to do it myself when I was poor," 
 he admitted ; " but that is not the way to success. 
 You can t get rich that way, any more than you can 
 by performing all your own manual labor. My 
 success is built on an unusual ability to discover men 
 who can think for me. But you two go ahead and 
 exchange your dreams; I am interested." 
 
 " I have no objection to telling mine," said Kel 
 vin. " In fact I am eager to tell them because it is 
 necessary. I want to concrete. In the first place 
 I want to do a little trust-busting." 
 
 " I ve tried it, and that s why I m here," laughed 
 Rollins. " Trust-busting, with absolute control of 
 every mile of railroad in the United States, is the 
 easiest thing in the world. The only bother is that 
 they won t hold still while you do it. My present 
 struggle with the private-car nuisance has opened 
 my eyes to what will happen when we really begin. 
 Raymer, Speed, Melton Sears and Company, and all 
 the others have been making life a burden to me. 
 Strangely enough, they don t want to be drawn and 
 quartered." 
 
 " I hate them, every one," suddenly snapped
 
 182 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Breed. " A dozen times they tried to gobble me up 
 in the early days. I have their photographs, too, 
 waiting to be checked off." 
 
 " We ll let you check them off by and by," replied 
 Rollins. " They are crippled now, but it was a task. 
 Even with all my experience I didn t appreciate the 
 full extent of the private-car graft. It was a colos 
 sal trick, serving merely as a disguise for excessive 
 and absurd rebates. The refrigerating-car system 
 has been especially obnoxious, the leading idea seem 
 ing to have been to charge more for the so-called 
 rental of these cars than the amount of the freight 
 age." 
 
 " Well, you stopped it," Kelvin consoled him. 
 
 " Yes, I stopped it," admitted Rollins with a sigh, 
 " and the next thing that happened I had all the big 
 packers on my neck. They have not scared me any, 
 even though they are making veiled threats; but 
 they are making me feel sort of lonesome, so I came 
 to Forest Lakes for company." 
 
 " The only way to forget the attacks of the pack 
 ers," suggested Kelvin, " is to attack the other 
 monopolies. Hamstring them the first stroke." 
 
 " Good! " said Rollins with relief; " it s a pleas 
 ure to find that we want the same thing without 
 argument. It s simple enough. I ve merely to 
 establish my flat freight-rate, without undue reduc 
 tion for quantity and without rebate, thus giving the
 
 MRS. RENSSELAER IS SHOCKED 183 
 
 small shipper an equal chance with the big one. The 
 interstate-commerce law may then go out of com 
 mission, for we will do the same work that it was 
 designed to do, but in which it failed. The provi 
 sions of that law could be evaded by the large cor 
 porations working in conjunction with the railroads ; 
 but there will be no evasion of my rate-card, which, 
 by the way, is ready to issue." 
 
 Kelvin and Breed exchanged glances. 
 
 " Don t misunderstand me," went on Rollins. " I 
 consider the trusts as much a product of natural law 
 as the attraction of gravitation; but where they 
 attain to stupendous fatness merely on abuses they 
 cease to fulfil the need which brought them into 
 existence. The greatest abuse of which the monop 
 olies have been guilty is in transportation. Prob 
 ably more than half of the freight carried is shipped 
 by large corporations, nearly every ton of it being 
 subject to a rebate or a draw-back of some sort; 
 and this drain on the railroads, amounting to mil 
 lions every year, must be made up by the small 
 shippers. I can lower the present ostensible cost of 
 transportation on a flat-rate basis and make more 
 money for our stock-holders." 
 
 Breed looked at Kelvin inquiringly. Phillip nod 
 ded his head. 
 
 " I have been over some of the figures," said 
 Breed. " The aggregate is appalling, but I am
 
 184 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 afraid that, after all, we shall be compelled to allow 
 certain concessions in certain places." 
 
 Rollins turned slightly pale. " I have been 
 waiting for that remark," he said, " but I want 
 you to understand that there will be no concession 
 of any sort," and he brought his clenched knuckles 
 down, not noisily, but firmly, upon the edge of the 
 desk. " One exception I grant you, and that is the 
 secret rebate on Mr. Breed s bread, wheat, and 
 cereal shipments, which was agreed upon in the first 
 place. Other than that, absolutely none ! I pro 
 pose to manage these united railroads unhampered, 
 as you agreed in our contract, or I propose to create 
 such a stench that public opinion will revolt at the 
 next stock-holders meeting, and you will be utterly 
 unable to secure proxies. Without proxies you 
 have no railroad domination." 
 
 Again Breed and Kelvin exchanged glances. 
 Again Phillip nodded his head. 
 
 " You are quite right in your contention, Mr. 
 Rollins," admitted Kelvin. " But you misunder 
 stand us. We don t intend to interfere with your 
 absolute control. We do hope, however, to have 
 you see that our way of planning is right. In the 
 end we hope to have you decide for yourself that 
 it would be wise to make certain concessions to cer 
 tain corporations. Until then, we shall not even 
 bother you with advice. In the meantime, promul-
 
 MRS. RENSSELAER IS SHOCKED 185 
 
 gate your flat-rate sheet, and we ll stand behind 
 you." 
 
 Rollins studied the matter over for some time. 
 Back of all this he still felt was an ulterior motive, 
 but they gave him no peg upon which to hang 
 his suspicion. " Very well," said he. " I think 
 that I shall remain at Forest Lakes for a month 
 or so. I have the routine management of the 
 roads in good order now and want to be quietly 
 by myself to figure out some readjustments in 
 routes. Now, since the roads are consolidated, 
 there are places where short connecting lines of 
 from ten to thirty miles would save either hauls of 
 from one hundred to three hundred miles, or grades 
 that are most expensive in operation. Moreover," 
 and he smiled, " I had just as lief have the avalanche 
 of protests come to me here as in New York." 
 
 " Good idea," agreed Kelvin. " All these people 
 will be sure to attempt to see Mr. Breed after they 
 have seen you, and Mr. Breed would instantly refer 
 them back to you. It might just as well be done all 
 in one trip." 
 
 " That is about the way of it," assented Rollins, 
 rising. " I understand by this that you will neither 
 promise nor attempt to make any concessions to 
 these people." 
 
 " Absolutely none," declared Kelvin. " We ll 
 give you our bond on that."
 
 186 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " Your word is enough at present," replied Rol 
 lins dryly. "If you will stick to the letter of that 
 I am perfectly satisfied." 
 
 After Rollins had left the room Kelvin turned 
 inquiringly to Breed. "Will he come in?" he 
 asked anxiously. 
 
 " When the time is ripe, yes," asserted Breed con 
 fidently. " His father was a judge, his grandfather 
 was a governor, his great-grandfather had a power 
 ful place in the cabinet of a United States president, 
 his ancestors from the time of the Revolution have 
 been honored with high office. It is in his blood, 
 and when the time comes he ll listen."
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 MR. ROLLINS SPENDS TWO EVENINGS IN UNWILLING 
 EAVESDROPPING 
 
 UPON the porch, that evening after dinner, 
 sat Mrs. Rensselaer, Herbert, Kelvin, and 
 Lillian Breed. Rollins, coming quietly 
 down-stairs, stood unobserved in the doorway for a 
 moment. Mrs. Rensselaer was holding Phillip in 
 deliberate conversation. Herbert, aroused to a sense 
 of his duty, was doing his best to entertain Lillian. 
 Rollins smiled cynically as he saw the tableau and 
 realized what it meant, and, turning, walked noise 
 lessly back through the hall and out the side door. 
 Back of the house he found Elsie White just com 
 ing down the kitchen steps, and joined her with 
 pleasure. She was so frank, so wholesome, that he 
 always had an indefinable impression of being the 
 better for having talked with her, even though noth 
 ing of moment had been said. 
 
 " How the country agrees with you ! " he observed 
 as he joined her. " You were looking rather pale 
 when I first saw you here, but you have found some 
 marvelous rouge among these trees." 
 187
 
 1 88 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " I like it very much," she admitted, turning his 
 compliment with a smile. " I have already grown 
 to have a certain amount of supercilious pity for 
 city-dwellers." 
 
 " They really need it," he agreed with a laugh ; 
 " and to prove that I am sincere in that remark I 
 am going to stop with you for a month or so." 
 
 " Good ! " she exclaimed. " More people to en 
 joy Forest Lakes is all that we need." 
 
 "Do they never have any visitors?" Rollins in 
 quired. "Week-end parties and the like?" 
 
 " Never," she replied. " For festivities of that 
 sort they go down occasionally to Mr. Breed s other 
 place in Virginia, but Mr. Breed is very jealous 
 of having any social life whatever here." 
 
 Rollins pondered that fact for a moment in 
 silence. It went well with a vague impression he 
 had that Breed meant Forest Lakes to be the ulti 
 mate business capital of the country. They were 
 walking down toward the kitchen-garden now, at 
 the side of which, back among the trees, stood the 
 cottage of Elsie s father, and, talking lightly of 
 many things of no consequence, Rollins strolled by 
 her side until they reached the cottage, where the 
 garrulous Mrs. White met them at the door. 
 
 Mrs. White was delighted to be introduced to Mr. 
 Rollins. She showed it in the expansive smile 
 which spread upon her wrinkled face and disclosed
 
 UNWILLING EAVESDROPPING 189 
 
 her yellow teeth, and she clasped his palm most 
 vigorously with a toil-knotted hand. " I m mighty 
 glad to meet you, Mr. Rollins," said she. " I ve 
 heard so much about you." 
 
 " Nothing but good, I hope," said Rollins 
 pleasantly. 
 
 " No, indeed," responded Mrs. White emphatic 
 ally. " Elsie has told me all about what a fine man 
 you are; and fine men are scarce enough any place. 
 Are you going to stay long this time? The other 
 times you never stayed more than two or three 
 days." 
 
 " He promises us a month at least, mother," Elsie 
 hastened to say, hoping to turn the conversation* 
 " Have you seen father s new hot-houses, Mr. 
 Rollins?" 
 
 " That s nice," asserted Mrs. White, ignoring 
 Elsie completely. " It s fine to have a lot of good- 
 looking men around. My goodness, I tell Elsie she 
 might just as well be locked up in jail as to be out 
 here where there are no men folks at all. She 
 never will have a chance to get married if she stays 
 here." 
 
 Rollins was thankful to Elsie that she laughed 
 from sheer amusement and gave him a chance to 
 join her. His amusement, and also his repressed 
 embarrassment were heightened when, after Elsie 
 had invited him to sit on the vine-clad little front
 
 190 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 stoop, Mrs. White suddenly and conspicuously ab 
 sented herself. The two were silent for a time, 
 drinking in the beauties of the twilight in comfort 
 able content, when they heard approaching voices. 
 
 " You had better come in with us," said the voice 
 of Blagg from just beyond the corner of the house. 
 " The organization now numbers more than a quar 
 ter of a million, all of the downtrodden, sworn to 
 serve the best interests of the poor." 
 
 " But if they are all poor people what can they 
 do to help themselves? " objected the voice of Ben 
 White. 
 
 " Rise up and overwhelm the existing condition 
 of things by the mere weight of numbers," 
 responded Blagg quickly and tensely. " Moreover, 
 the organization is not so poor as you might think. 
 It has quite a snug little sum in its own treasury, 
 and besides that I know where there are a billion and 
 a half dollars in cash that we can seize upon the 
 moment we rise. Look here, Mr. White, I want to 
 explain to you the system of our organization " 
 
 By the sound of the voices they were slowly 
 walking away. Elsie turned to Rollins with a 
 troubled frown. 
 
 " I don t like this Mr. Blagg," she declared. " He 
 talks nearly every evening with father about some 
 secret society he wishes him to join, and I am 
 afraid."
 
 UNWILLING EAVESDROPPING 191 
 
 Rollins laughed easily. " These socialistic organ 
 izations never do anything," he told her. " Chiefly 
 they get together and talk large, and sometimes a 
 few of the more rabid of them make a public dem 
 onstration which is immediately quashed by the 
 police." 
 
 He thought no more of the matter just then, but 
 he did think more and more frequently of Elsie 
 White as the days wore on. He knew that he had 
 lost caste with Mrs. Rensselaer the first time she saw 
 him with Lillian s maid, but he did not care to hold 
 caste with Mrs. Rensselaer. The Rollins men folk 
 had held it as their right to marry whom they chose, 
 contenting themselves with producing illustrious 
 sons and demanding of their women only that they 
 be pure. It was almost a tradition among these men 
 to woo and wed healthy " daughters of the people," 
 so, outside of his business hours, Sumner Rollins 
 lived as he liked, enjoying the quiet and peace of 
 Forest Lakes, its healthful advantages, its oppor 
 tunities for uninterrupted planning; and he began 
 a deliberate courtship of Elsie White. 
 
 He avoided Lillian Breed from fastidious choice, 
 but he spent much time in his spare hours with 
 Kelvin and young Rensselaer. He boated, rode, 
 golfed, and took long walks with them, and for his 
 other amusement tried to fathom the tense wills and 
 purposes that lay about him. Henry Breed s mon-
 
 192 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 strous desires for power and domination he took to 
 be those of senility. Kelvin s dreams, as Rollins 
 saw them, were but the natural, boundless ambitions 
 of a young man of great ability joined to great op 
 portunity, although given rein, he felt that they 
 might be dangerous. Mrs. Rensselaer s desire to 
 marry her nephew to Lillian Breed he placed in the 
 same category as Mrs. White s desire to marry Elsie 
 to some man of wealth and station. Blagg, the vi 
 sionary, was, after all, the most curious study to him. 
 He was destined a second time on this visit to eaves 
 drop on Blagg, though all unpremeditatedly. 
 
 One drowsy night he had dropped to sleep upon 
 a bench on the porch, in the shadow of a climbing 
 rose-bush. He was awakened by the scrape of 
 chairs, and became conscious of low and tense voices 
 quite near him. 
 
 " You too could love as I love," said the voice of 
 Blagg, trembling with repressed intensity ; " could 
 love with seething brain, with pounding pulses, with 
 a heart the throbs of which would hurt and hurt and 
 hurt!" 
 
 " You are almost poetical in your anatomy of the 
 emotions," drawled the contemptuous voice of Lil 
 lian Breed. " I had no idea that the love of money 
 could affect one in that precise way." 
 
 " You don t mean that slur," he protested angrily. 
 " You know that if you had not a dollar I would still
 
 UNWILLING EAVESDROPPING 193 
 
 have for you this hunger that starves me, this thirst 
 that parches me, this flame that burns me, this agony 
 that makes me cry out in the night." 
 
 The torture that was in his tone was so apparent 
 and so convincing that Rollins, not daring to move 
 lest he betray his presence embarrassingly, felt pro 
 found pity for the man. A trace of that pity seemed 
 for the moment to pass to Lillian too, for she was 
 silent for some little space. 
 
 " You ought not to encourage yourself in that 
 attitude," she said with less contempt. " You are 
 making a breach in the confidence that is placed in 
 you here." 
 
 " I would make a breach in the wall of Heaven," 
 he retorted passionately, " I would break and 
 destroy it utterly, would grind it to atoms, would 
 scatter its dust to the four winds, if by that I might 
 win you : and you could love, I tell you, as madly as 
 I do." 
 
 "Yes," she admitted slowly; "but not you." 
 
 " I know," he responded bitterly ; " but you are 
 wasting your affections. Kelvin cares for no one 
 but himself." 
 
 " Who told you to speak his name ? Don t make 
 me hate you." 
 
 " I d rather that than indifference," he declared ; 
 " so hate me, for hate, at least, is an emotion. As 
 for Kelvin, I will not be silent about him, for I
 
 194 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 think you re mistaken about even yourself. It is not 
 Kelvin to whom you are attracted, but the force he 
 represents. The power to achieve, that is what you 
 worship ; but in your dreams of the power he might 
 acquire you are blind to other possibilities. I too 
 can give you power. Join with me, and future his 
 torians will acclaim us as the great liberators of the 
 chained and manacled American public." 
 
 " Splendid ! " she exclaimed, laughing lightly. 
 " I didn t even know they needed liberation." 
 
 " You have much to learn," he returned. " Do 
 you know that the army of the unemployed now 
 numbers nearly a million ? Do you know that there 
 is an organization among them and their more for 
 tunate brothers, aggregating a quarter of a million, 
 which is sworn to change the existing order of 
 things so that every man shall have an equal oppor 
 tunity? You spoke of money a while ago. Well, 
 for itself I despise money, but for what it can do for 
 the cause of humanity I love it. Listen a moment. 
 I could gain control of this organization and increase 
 it to ten million if I had your opportunities to com 
 mand a billion and a half dollars of cash." 
 
 " Of what are you talking? " Her tone now was 
 a frightened one. 
 
 " The possibilities of a new and glorious order of 
 things, a new social system, a new form of govern-
 
 UNWILLING EAVESDROPPING 195 
 
 ment which shall guarantee to every man an equal 
 distribution of earning capacity. I need to rally 
 ten million men to the new cause. It will cost one 
 hundred and fifty dollars per man. That amounts 
 to a billion and a half of dollars. You have, let us 
 say, influential friends who have plenty of money, 
 solid cash. Join me, help me to raise this money, 
 help me to carry through to its glorious conclusion 
 th s enormous benefit to humanity, and no king and 
 queen will have a firmer and a more honored place 
 in history than we shall have." 
 
 " It is a dream of folly," she protested. " You 
 would expend all this enormous amount of money, 
 if you had it, in promoting only a new reign of 
 terror." 
 
 " By no means," he declared, and laughed. " My 
 ten million men would need but to show their teeth 
 and it would all be over. There need not be a blow 
 struck. Of course, if any one came in our way he 
 would have to suffer." 
 
 The voice of Mrs. Rensselaer broke in upon them, 
 peremptorily calling upon Lillian for some music. 
 
 " Coming," replied Lillian. She turned to Blagg. 
 " I must go in now," she said to him. " Your talk 
 is perfectly silly but it is amusing, too. I find it 
 quite curious and interesting." 
 
 She hurried into the house, leaving Blagg alone
 
 196 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 on the porch. As soon as she had gone, Blagg 
 stepped down into the grounds and disappeared in 
 the woods, upon one of those lonely, passion-torn 
 walks in which he so often indulged at night. Rol 
 lins sat quite still and thought for a long, long time.
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 MR. ROLLINS LEARNS OF THE REMARKABLE AFFINITY 
 BETWEEN BUSINESS AND POLITICS 
 
 THE flat freight-rate was a tremendous sen 
 sation. The astute gentlemen of the 
 newspaper fraternity immediately fath 
 omed its sweeping possibilities. Simple as it 
 sounded, it meant an industrial revolution more far- 
 reaching than any innovation in a century. It was 
 the beginning of the answer, if not the answer itself, 
 to the tremendous problem of what to do with the 
 trusts. Indefatigable workers of the Fourth Estate 
 gleaned from hundreds of hidden sources a mass of 
 statistics upon freight abuses startling even to Breed 
 and Kelvin, even to Sumner Rollins himself. With 
 the customary hysteria of the American press, which 
 is but a justifiable deflection of the customary 
 hysteria of the American people, the new flat rate, 
 within a week, was hailed as the great Utopian reali 
 zation, the one supreme act which was to level all 
 distinctions, which was to place all business upon an 
 equal footing, which was to cure all the economic ills 
 of the country! And who was back of this huge 
 197
 
 198 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 philanthropic move? Rollins, Sumner Rollins, the 
 Napoleon of the railroad world. And who was back 
 of Sumner Rollins ? Henry Breed. As France had 
 been behind Napoleon, the strength of his arm and 
 his will and his mighty ambition, so Breed was be 
 hind Rollins. Yet another step, who was back of 
 Breed ? Phillip Kelvin. There was the man ! Until 
 Kelvin had come, Breed had done none of these 
 radical things. Since Kelvin had appeared upon the 
 scene, Breed had broken up the Stock Exchange, he 
 had reduced the price of bread to cost, he had disin 
 tegrated the Unified Steel Corporation, he had re 
 moved the unjust discrimination of the railroads; 
 ergo Kelvin was really the big force of all this 
 reformation. 
 
 Kelvin! Great was Kelvin! Column upon 
 column was printed about him, his past life, his phe 
 nomenal rise, his tremendous executive ability. 
 Scarcely a paper of any note but carried a Sunday 
 feature about him. His portrait was printed far and 
 wide, and he leaped into the lime-light of publicity 
 almost instantaneously. He became a national fig 
 ure overnight, as it were. Men talked about him at 
 clubs, in cafes, in street-cars, in their homes, wher 
 ever they were congregated. Even men of large 
 affairs were impressed with Kelvin, and thought him 
 worth studying, as they had good cause; for any 
 man so possessed of power as to alter apparently the
 
 BUSINESS AND POLITICS 199 
 
 entire commercial system of the country by a mere 
 word of direction was a rich subject for investiga 
 tion. About the flat rate, however, they merely 
 winked. It was a splendid piece of buncombe for 
 the public; it was a splendid weapon which would 
 give Breed power of life and death over any business 
 upon which he chose to exert it; but that it meant 
 just what it stated on the surface was past belief. 
 
 Nevertheless it was better to have a very definite 
 understanding, and as such matters were somewhat 
 too delicate for correspondence, which never dies, a 
 succession of suave gentlemen, representing various 
 large interests, trailed Rollins from his New York 
 offices down to Forest Lakes to meet, in succession, 
 quite rude shocks. There was positively no satisfac 
 tion to be had from Rollins. The flat rate was a 
 flat rate, and it meant exactly what it said. From 
 Rollins they appealed to Breed, and Kelvin sent 
 them back to Rollins. Rollins sent them away in 
 dumb astonishment. Kelvin managed to hint to 
 these hired intermediaries as they departed that it 
 would be useless for any other than the most impor 
 tant men in the business to make this pilgrimage; 
 consequently the various Mahomets came to the 
 mountain. 
 
 The first of these was John G. Hepperdon, the 
 head of the petroleum trust, one of the most perfect 
 combines in existence, and one .which had been built
 
 200 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 almost entirely upon rebates and freight concessions 
 of various sorts. Mr. Hepperdon, a large gentleman 
 whose neck was the same size as his head, and who 
 wore curious purple pouches under his eyes, was a 
 trifle impatient over the necessity of having to make 
 such a trip, and was insistent upon coming to a crisp 
 working basis at once. For that reason he did not 
 go to Mr. Rollins at all. He very calmly walked 
 over that gentleman s figurative head to Mr. Breed. 
 
 " Hello, Breed," said he, walking in upon that 
 gentleman as he sat in his library poring over a set 
 of photographs, one of which happened to be Mr. 
 Hepperdon s. " I don t see why you couldn t hold 
 up Sawyer as well as me. Sawyer s a good, close- 
 mouthed man. There s no need for such infernal 
 secrecy about all this thing. Let s get down to blunt 
 bed rock on this freight proposition. How much 
 of a rebate are we to get, and what percentage of it 
 goes to you individually ? " 
 
 " Glad to see you, Hepperdon," said Breed. " It 
 has been a long time since I had the pleasure of a 
 brush with you. Where have you been keeping 
 yourself so long? " 
 
 " Just got back from Europe," said Hepperdon, 
 folding his puffy hands comfortably over his great 
 est girth; "but how about this freight business? I 
 have to get back on the next train." 
 
 " Out of my hands entirely," said Breed. " You ll
 
 BUSINESS AND POLITICS 201 
 
 have to see Mr. Rollins," and he rang for Kelvin, to 
 whom he gravely introduced Hepperdon. " Mr. 
 Kelvin, take Mr. Hepperdon up and introduce him 
 to Mr. Rollins/ said he. 
 
 Kelvin smilingly did so, and, having introduced 
 the two gentlemen, quietly withdrew. 
 
 To Rollins, Hepperdon made much the same sort 
 of a beginning as with Breed. 
 
 " The rate means precisely what it says," de 
 clared Rollins. 
 
 " Of course, of course," said Hepperdon sooth 
 ingly ; " but how are we going to arrange the rebate ? 
 I suppose you have some new plan for taking care 
 of it." 
 
 " There is to be no rebate," declared Rollins. 
 " Why should there be a rebate ? You have to ship 
 over our roads, and you may be thankful that we are 
 making only a fair, percentage-yielding rate. As a 
 matter of fact, the previously published rate has 
 been lowered." 
 
 " That is exactly what I don t like about it," in 
 terrupted Hepperdon, the sparse gray hairs upon his 
 cowlick standing out in several directions as he con 
 tracted his scalp in his puzzled impatience. " You 
 haven t set your rate high enough for a good margin 
 of profit from the small shippers." 
 
 " The margin of profit on all shipments is to be 
 exactly the same," replied Rollins. " Just disabuse
 
 202 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 your mind, Mr. Hepperdon, of the idea that there is 
 to be a concession of any sort. There is no use in 
 discussing the matter because this is flat and final." 
 
 " Do you mean that ? " demanded Hepperdon, 
 rising upon his ponderous cylindrical legs and wav 
 ing one fat hand in nervous aimlessness. 
 
 " I mean it absolutely." 
 
 Hepperdon studied him in silence for a while. 
 There was no doubt that Rollins meant precisely 
 what he said. 
 
 " Very well," snapped Hepperdon. " Within two 
 weeks there will be a special bill introduced into the 
 United States House of Representatives, dissolving 
 your railroad combination." 
 
 Hepperdon was waddling out of the house fum 
 ing, without stopping to make any further adieus to 
 Breed, when Kelvin stopped him in the hall. 
 
 " Mr. Breed would like to see you for a few min 
 utes before you go." 
 
 Hepperdon looked at him for a moment and then, 
 with a grunt of dawning comprehension, followed. 
 
 " Hepperdon, about how much political influence 
 do you actually control ? " asked Breed. 
 
 " More than any one aggregation of business in 
 terests in the United States," declared Hepperdon, 
 placing his hands upon his round knees and leaning 
 his weight impressively forward. " I own exclu 
 sively a cabinet officer, five United States senators,
 
 BUSINESS AND POLITICS 203 
 
 more than a dozen United States representatives and 
 half a dozen governors, and minor officials, state 
 legislators and the like, running up into the hun 
 dreds. Besides that, I have partnership interests in 
 connection with other large commercial forces, in 
 two or three times as many more political leaders." 
 
 " That tallies very well with our estimate," said 
 Breed. " We may want to borrow this influence of 
 yours a little later on, Hepperdon. In the meantime, 
 suppose you just go ahead and pay this flat rate of 
 Rollins and say nothing. Leave it to me." 
 
 " Sure," said Hepperdon. " I knew there must 
 be a nigger in the woodpile some place. You re 
 looking very well indeed, Breed. I had heard that 
 you were very much under the weather. Is your 
 golfing doing you any good ? " And Hepperdon set 
 himself down quite comfortably to smoke a cigar 
 and chat until it was time for him to start for his 
 train. 
 
 The next day brought Raymer, rawboned and 
 wooden featured but fairly oily in his suavity, and 
 the head of the beef trust; and Valentine, little and 
 screechy and marked with countless black freckles, 
 and the head of the woolen combine. They came 
 down on the train together, discussing the matter 
 very thoroughly on the way, and together they came 
 in to talk with Breed. Mr. Breed was very glad in- 
 deed to see them, and, denying absolutely that he
 
 204 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 had anything to do with railroad affairs, passed them 
 on to Rollins, who assured them with great firm 
 ness that the flat rate was a flat rate, and that it 
 knew no friends or foes. In unison, and garnished 
 with many rugged expletives, Mr. Raymer and Mr. 
 Valentine declared to Mr. Rollins that they would 
 invoke special legislation which would put his rail 
 road monopoly out of the business, dissolve it and 
 separate it into healthy competition, scatter it into 
 easily handled fragments, and, incidentally, remove 
 Mr. Rollins from any and all spheres of activity 
 whatsoever, for ever and a day and then some ! 
 On their way out Kelvin led them in to see Mr. 
 Breed, who, with Kelvin s assistance, tabulated Mr. 
 Raymer s and Mr. Valentine s legislative control. 
 
 The ensuing two weeks were taken up by a suc 
 cession of such incidents as these, and at the conclu 
 sion of that time Representative Oswald introduced 
 into the House a bill providing that no railroad 
 should own stock in another one ; that no man should 
 vote control, by proxy or ownership, in more than 
 one of two or more competing roads; and that no 
 railroad official should hold either office or stock in 
 another line of rails which reached between any two 
 same shipping points. This was the straw, or rather 
 the bale of straw, which snapped Rollins already 
 highly strung nervous tension. The continuous 
 threatening of various interests that had sought to
 
 BUSINESS AND POLITICS 205 
 
 exert pressure upon him had begun to wear him 
 down, and now, when the news of this move was 
 brought to him, he came to Breed and Kelvin in 
 much distress. Really, it was not so much a sur 
 prise to Kelvin and Breed as it might have been 
 for it was they who had instructed Hepperdon as to 
 the psychological moment in which to have Oswald 
 introduce his bill. 
 
 " I expected nothing else," said Breed, glancing 
 at the Marconigram and handing it to Kelvin. 
 " You know we told you in the first place that it 
 might be necessary to make certain concessions." 
 
 " Never ! " declared Rollins. " We ll fight them 
 to the last ditch! They have introduced this bill, 
 but they have not yet passed it!" 
 
 " But they will the minute it comes to a vote," 
 said Kelvin. " Come up to my room and let me 
 show you a diagram, Mr. Rollins." 
 
 In his office Phillip displayed a curious sheet of 
 cardboard, almost as large as the top of his desk, 
 upon which the name of every senator and every 
 United States representative was set down. A few 
 were marked in red as men who were not for sale, 
 but the rest, the vast majority, were divided into 
 groups, one " owned " by Hepperdon, another by 
 Raymer, another by Valentine, etc., and the names 
 were in some places cross-grouped, showing that 
 certain of the senators and certain of the representa-
 
 206 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 tives served several non-conflicting interests. The 
 diagram told at a glance precisely how every man 
 would vote on this bill. 
 
 " This thing is incredible," declared Rollins. 
 " Such a state of affairs can not exist." 
 
 " Such a state of affairs does exist," asserted Kel 
 vin. " You may close your eyes and touch a pencil- 
 point in succession upon any half-dozen names there, 
 not ringed with red. Wire those gentlemen and ask 
 them to tell you by to-morrow how. they intend to 
 vote on this bill." 
 
 " I ll do it," said Rollins,
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 MR. BLAGG CONTRIVES A MELODRAMATIC INCIDENT 
 FOR THE AMBITIOUS KELVIN. 
 
 Y afternoon Rollins had answers to all his 
 wires. Four declared without reserve that 
 they were for the bill on principle. Two 
 answered evasively. 
 
 " It looks bad, but we mustn t allow this state of 
 affairs," protested Rollins. " We must stop it in 
 some way or other. We must use counter-strategy." 
 
 " There is only one that I know of," stated Kel 
 vin quietly. " Concessions." 
 
 " I will resign from my management before I 
 make a solitary concession ! " declared Rollins. 
 
 " Would you pay five thousand dollars for a 
 building-lot if you knew that you could immediately 
 sell it for ten ? " demanded Kelvin. 
 
 "Certainly," replied Rollins; "but I don t see 
 where the illustration applies." 
 
 " In just this way," explained Kelvin. " With 
 concessions buy legislators from enough of these 
 men to secure legislative control, and go after the 
 balance. This gives your flat rate pretty wide scope, 
 
 20 7,
 
 208 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Rollins, and it protects us until we can control our 
 own legislation. We have, Mr. Breed and myself, 
 as you must have appreciated by now, certain large 
 ideas of reform. We believe precisely as you do, 
 that good business and justice are compatible. We 
 intend to put the whole country on that plane, but to 
 do it we must use whatever weapons we find shaped 
 to our hand. There never was a more just and 
 equitable contrivance than your flat freight-rate, but 
 you can see at once what powerful interests are 
 arrayed against it. We must conciliate those inter 
 ests in order to cripple them. We will rent Hepper- 
 don s and Raymer s senators until we can buy them 
 or supplant them with some of our own. Then we 
 will make our own legislation, and we will guar 
 antee that you shall have a share in it." 
 
 Rollins was silent for a long time. 
 
 " It is a very simple proposition, Rollins," urged 
 Breed. You are only granting these concessions 
 in order to be able, later on, to refuse them." 
 
 " Doing evil that good may come, eh? " laughed 
 Rollins a little uneasily. 
 
 " Put it that way if you like," responded Breed 
 dryly, " but when you are president of the United 
 States, with the House of Representatives and the 
 Senate in thorough sympathy with you " 
 
 " President ! " exclaimed Rollins. 
 
 " Yes, president," returned Breed. " I don t mind
 
 A MELODRAMATIC INCIDENT 209 
 
 telling you our slate now. When, we first intimated 
 that you might have to make some concessions, this 
 thing was all mapped out, but we did not argue w ? ith 
 you at that time. We wanted you to go ahead and 
 see for yourself just how necessary our course of 
 action was. Our program includes, this coming 
 campaign, running Kelvin for president and your 
 self for vice-president. Mr. Kelvin wants but four 
 years as president. At the expiration of his term 
 of office we intend to put you up for president. 
 
 " And we ll elect you ! " supplemented Kelvin 
 confidently. 
 
 " President ! " repeated Rollins in a daze. 
 
 They had touched the right cord. From back 
 through his heredity there came a strain of rever 
 ence for the honor of high public office, and that 
 strain was not to be denied. To be president ! 
 
 " The plans are under way," stated Breed. " We 
 have had them secretly at work for a year. We are 
 gradually and quietly obtaining control of the polit 
 ical situation. To-day we could almost do without 
 Hepperdon and Raymer and the others, but not 
 quite. What do you suppose became of all the so- 
 called railroad senators ? Did you ever wonder 
 why they bothered you so little? Well, I took care 
 of them added them to my group. Mr. Rollins, 
 I am an old man." Breed s hand strayed to the cor 
 ner of his table where lay his well-thumbed old
 
 210 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Bible. He clasped it in his hand and pressed it 
 against his body. " I am an old man, an old, old 
 man," he repeated. " I have done some evil in my 
 life, I suppose, but all this time I have been acquir 
 ing power; more power than any man in the world 
 has ever possessed, and I intend to use this power 
 for good. I intend to upset the very conditions by 
 which I gained this power; for it is the fault of our 
 economic system that I have so wonderfully suc 
 ceeded. This fault is to be remedied. For the rest 
 of my life I intend to exert this great power for 
 nothing but good; to exert it in making a readjust 
 ment of our living conditions so that neither great 
 wealth nor great poverty shall be possible. The 
 Lord hath set the time for this great day, and mine 
 is the appointed hand ! " 
 
 Both men looked at him curiously. He was not 
 now addressing them, but gazing intently into the 
 fireplace. The pupils of his eyes had expanded, and 
 they began to glitter with an unwonted fire. Doctor 
 Zelphan, who had been sitting quietly in the corner, 
 came hurriedly over and put his hand upon Breed. 
 The door opened, and Lillian came in. She had been 
 about to ask some trivial question, but seeing that 
 look in her grandfather s face, she too hurried over 
 to him and put her hand upon his other shoulder. 
 At Zelphan s touch Breed had given no sign, but to 
 the touch of Lillian he responded instantly. The
 
 " The Lord hath appointed the time for His great reform
 
 A MELODRAMATIC INCIDENT 211 
 
 rigidity of his features relaxed; he shook his head 
 as one shakes off drowsiness, and then looked up at 
 Kelvin with a resumption of his old shrewd twinkle. 
 
 " So that s the program," he said, in quite a nat 
 ural tone of voice. " Next year we ll run the ticket 
 of Kelvin and Rollins." 
 
 Rollins caught his breath with a sharp little in 
 take. " It is a high honor," he said. 
 
 Kelvin laughed lightly. " No honor could be too 
 high for my greed of power," he said in a half- 
 jesting tone. " I am still of the opinion that I 
 should like to be emperor." 
 
 Lillian looked up at him, smiling. " And I still 
 hold to my original declaration that if you are I 
 want to be empress," she declared. 
 
 Something clattered at Kelvin s feet. Startled, 
 they all looked down. It was a bright steel dagger. 
 
 " Beg your pardon," said Blagg, stooping down to 
 get it. He had come in unobserved with a message. 
 " It was very awkward of me. As it happens, this 
 is only Mr. Kelvin s paper-knife, which I acciden 
 tally brushed off the corner of his desk," and he held 
 up the trinket, which was familiar to all of them. 
 " Only a paper-knife, but, after all, it is a dagger, 
 too, and rather an unlucky omen to drop at the feet 
 of a man who declares his desire to be emperor of 
 the United States ! " 
 
 The incident was passed over as of no moment.
 
 212 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Afterward, when Rollins and Phillip were once 
 more going over Kelvin s illuminative diagram of 
 senatorial control, Rollins laughed in keen amuse 
 ment. 
 
 " Your man Blagg is as good as vaudeville," he 
 observed. " At first I was inclined to take him 
 rather seriously, but he s too melodramatic to mean 
 anything. I happened to see that paper-knife inci 
 dent out of the corner of my eye. Blagg deliber 
 ately pushed it off the desk to fall at your feet." 
 
 Kelvin joined in the laugh. " He s absolutely 
 harmless," he said; "but he s an excellent wireless 
 operator." 
 
 Shortly afterward the paper-knife disappeared 
 from Kelvin s desk, but no one noticed its absence, 
 nor would any one have given the matter a second 
 thought if he had missed it. 
 
 The argument with Rollins had but one possible 
 result; Hepperdon and Raymer got their conces 
 sions, as did a few others. The list of those who 
 should be thus favored in exchange for their politi 
 cal control had been carefully selected, according 
 to Kelvin s diagram, to make as few concessions as 
 possible, compatible with the securing of a majority 
 of legislative power. Raymer had originally ap 
 peared as representing the entire packers combine, 
 but when the matter was put squarely up to him he 
 promptly left Speed, Melton Sears and Company,
 
 A MELODRAMATIC INCIDENT 213 
 
 and the rest of them out in the cold, took a comfort 
 able rebate for his own shipments, and let them 
 pay the full freight. It was excellent work, and it 
 let him enlarge his plant at once. Valentine was 
 left out entirely, Kelvin, with a smile, pointing out 
 that Breed himself controlled all but one of the men 
 whom Valentine claimed as his own. The Oswald 
 bill was killed in committee, and the fact that this 
 bill was never heard of again was passed over by the 
 papers in the greater sensation of the desperate and 
 losing fight that was being waged against Breed s 
 railroad consolidation by the disgruntled business 
 interests which could not escape from the " oppres 
 sion " of the flat rate. 
 
 Valentine was one of the loudest objectors. His 
 business was ruined, and he attempted to revive the 
 Oswald bill by the introduction of a similar one. 
 The legislative gentlemen who drew their pay from 
 him made a great public ado about the introduction 
 of this bill, but it died in committee precisely as the 
 other one had died. Within six months the woolen- 
 mills combine resolved itself into its original mem 
 bers. It had been a loose organization at best. 
 There had been warring elements within it that 
 might ultimately have torn it asunder, but Kelvin s 
 publicity bureau, which was conducted by the New 
 Jersey offices of Breed s United Food Company, 
 seized upon this as the first shining example of what
 
 214 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 the flat rate had done for the public, and Kelvin 
 went soaring again in the public esteem. The mills 
 of the woolen combine had once more become inde 
 pendent concerns, competing with one another with 
 the double effect of raising the price of wool and 
 lowering the price of the finished article, the farmers 
 and the public being the great beneficiaries ; and Rol 
 lins had done this, with Breed back of him as the 
 momentum, and back of them both Kelvin, as the 
 dynamic force. Great was Kelvin! Then the beef 
 combine came to blows. Raymer, as he well might, 
 was underselling the other packers and gobbling up 
 their trade. Some of this internal war leaked out, 
 and again the flat rate, Breed, Rollins, and Mighty 
 Kelvin were heroes! The Unified Steel Corpora 
 tion, the woolen combine, and the beef trust ! There 
 was a record over which to crow ! Who now was 
 the friend of the people? Why, Breed! And Rol 
 lins! And Kelvin, Great Kelvin! 
 
 But Kelvin had long since absented himself from 
 Forest Lakes, leaving behind him no thought of any 
 interest that might be there, save as it concerned his 
 own boundless aims. The dreams of two women, 
 one dark and one fair, followed him, but he would 
 not have cared, now, if he had known. He left the 
 field to his rivals Mrs. Rensselaer for Herbert, 
 and Rollins for himself with perfect equanimity,
 
 A MELODRAMATIC INCIDENT 215 
 
 and plunged into his new plans with the same con 
 centration that had marked his previous undertak 
 ings. In the meantime, Henry Breed, watched sav 
 agely by Zelphan, spent his half -hour daily in his 
 huge money-vault, and day by day spent more and 
 more furtive time upon his Bible, while Blagg, at 
 dead of night in the privacy of his own bedroom, 
 practised incessantly, with long, sensitive fingers, 
 upon his sample combination lock. He could open 
 it now, set upon any combination, by the mere feel 
 of the drop of the tumblers. 
 
 Kelvin s new task was an agreeable one. He took 
 up pleasant quarters in Washington and began to 
 entertain the list of senators whom Breed counted 
 as among his assets, and gradually his circle of 
 acquaintances grew. He was gone about three 
 months, and when he returned he sent for Rollins. 
 
 " Have you sent Hepperdon and Raymer and the 
 others their rebates?" he asked. 
 
 " Yesterday, up to the first of the month," replied 
 Rollins. "Why?" 
 
 " Because there are to be no more. Collect your 
 flat rate and keep it, without a single exception. 
 We ve won." 
 
 " Rebate to the United Food Company, as usual, 
 Rollins," interrupted Breed with a chuckle. " That s 
 my only profit on bread now, you know, since Kel-
 
 216 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 vin reduced it to cost. And rebate in cash, Rollins, 
 always in cash ! " and he rubbed his thin old hands 
 together in tense enjoyment. 
 
 " But I don t quite understand," protested Rollins. 
 " Can t they legislate against us effectively now ? " 
 
 " Scarcely," returned Kelvin with a smile, " since 
 we ourselves are the law-making body, so long as we 
 keep the public from clamoring too much to their 
 servants in Washington. I ve just purchased 
 stock in the government former assets of Hepper- 
 don and Raymer and their fellow bandits to give 
 us control." 
 
 Rollins looked troubled. "I don t like it," he 
 said. 
 
 " Nonsense ! " declared Kelvin. " We re using it 
 to a good end. You can establish your flat rate now 
 as you planned in the first place. Surely that is a 
 bit of justice you could not have had otherwise. 
 Moreover, we re going to begin the battle of the 
 trusts in earnest." 
 
 " The battle of the trusts," repeated Rollins mus 
 ingly. " It sounds interesting, at least." 
 
 " It won t be, though," replied Kelvin with con 
 tempt. " There will be no battle whatever. I m 
 merely going to chloroform them, on the eve of the 
 presidential nomination. About the most popular 
 idea that was ever put before the vast, unsuccessful 
 majority of the voting public is the graded property
 
 A MELODRAMATIC INCIDENT 217 
 
 tax. Well, I m going to flame into print with the 
 suggestion for a graded corporation tax, and then 
 have Mr. Breed s carefully tamed legislators frame 
 that suggestion into a bill and pass it into a law. 
 The wealthier the corporation the more it will be 
 taxed pro rata, until, toward the top, the tax will 
 become prohibitive. I look forward to seeing a fine, 
 healthy new crop of corporations, all rather small. 
 The law is already as good as passed, and I imagine 
 that it will be quite a shock to your old friends 
 Hepperdon and Valentine and Raymer, Speed, Mel 
 ton Sears and Company, and a few others. Eh, 
 Mr. Breed?" 
 
 But Henry Breed did not hear Phillip. He had 
 just taken from the drawer of his desk a handful 
 of photographs, a piece of red wax crayon, a ham 
 mer and some tacks and was starting for the rear 
 study. As he passed, Phillip caught a glimpse of 
 the top photograph. It was a portrait of Hepper 
 don.
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 KELVIN AND A STRANGER INSPECT SOME WORTHLESS 
 LONG ISLAND REAL ESTATE 
 
 A 
 
 CHEAPLY dressed fellow, a big man with 
 a thick neck and broad shoulders and arms 
 that hung crooked at the elbows, alighted 
 at a little wilderness station on the Long Island 
 Railroad, behind Kelvin and Sam. A farmer-like 
 native, in a rattling old surrey drawn by a bony 
 horse, was waiting at the station, and, disregard 
 ing the big fellow, who looked like a workman out 
 of a job, approached the more prosperous appear 
 ing Phillip. 
 
 "You Mr. Kelvin?" he demanded. 
 
 " The same," replied Kelvin. " This is Mr. 
 Purser, I believe ? " 
 
 " I reckon so," admitted the other. " Old Hay 
 seed Purser. Most people, when they come out to 
 see me, are surprised to find such an old farmer in 
 the real-estate business, but I take oath I ve sold 
 more Long Island property than all these plug-hat 
 schemers five times over." 
 
 Kelvin, with a smile, had already clambered into 
 218
 
 LONG ISLAND REAL ESTATE 219 
 
 the front seat of the dilapidated surrey, marveling 
 at the old cushions from which the dusty horsehair 
 protruded on all sides. Mr. Purser, who was 
 dressed in rusty and dusty and wrinkled clothing 
 from peaked cap to plow-shoes, but whose rusty and 
 dusty and wrinkled old countenance contained a pair 
 of very bright and shrewd blue eyes, paused in the 
 operation of unhitching the weather-beaten steed, 
 and fixed upon Kelvin a contemplative gaze. 
 
 " You don t want to see that scrub-oak land we 
 wrote each other about," he suddenly advised with 
 engaging bluntness. " You re no cheap-lot boomer. 
 You re lookin for a summer home. Better let me 
 sell you a nice piece of shore property. I got a 
 fourteen-acre place with eight hundred foot of fine 
 gravel beach where you can drive right down into 
 the bay. Ten thousand dollars \vill " 
 
 " No," objected Kelvin, still smiling. " I ll look 
 at the scrub-oak property, I think." 
 
 At this moment the big, workman-looking fellow 
 stepped up to Mr. Purser. " Could you tell me 
 where I d find a few acres of cheap ground fit for 
 market-gardening?" he asked. 
 
 " There ain t any such property left on Long 
 Island," declared Mr. Purser emphatically. " The 
 land between this railroad and the water ain t cheap, 
 and the land back o that you couldn t grow any 
 thing on. It is all sand-dunes. Don t grow nothin*
 
 220 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 but scrub-oak and scrub-pine." He was frowning 
 as he spoke. He had already determined that the 
 big man could not, in any event, be a profitable 
 customer. 
 
 " I ll look at what you have, anyhow," replied 
 the other. 
 
 " All right," said Mr. Purser reluctantly. " Just 
 crawl in the buggy there. I reckon you might as 
 well go along if Mr. Kelvin ain t got any serious 
 objections." 
 
 " None whatever," said Phillip, glancing at the 
 stranger casually, and without any more words the 
 latter took his place in the back seat of the surrey, 
 beside the negro. 
 
 Mr. Purser got in by the side of Kelvin, took the 
 reins, and shook his raveled old whip in its socket; 
 whereat the bony horse moved off at a gait which, 
 aside from stopping and starting, was absolutely 
 unalterable. 
 
 They drove straight away from the tiny station, 
 and, turning from the highway by and by, struck 
 off into a scarcely defined road through the wilder 
 ness of stunted oaks and pines, a road that could 
 not possibly have been traversed by an automobile 
 or followed without a guide, as Kelvin had been 
 warned by Mr. Purser before he came down. 
 Within ten minutes ride from the beautifully 
 wooded and turfed bay- front acreage, they were as
 
 LONG ISLAND REAL ESTATE 221 
 
 good as lost in a scene so forsaken that it did not 
 seem possible that busy Broadway could be so near. 
 
 " Well, here you see it," said Mr. Purser depre- 
 catingly. " I might drive you for hours, and it s 
 all just like this." 
 
 " What is it worth ? " asked Kelvin. 
 
 " I reckon I could turn over a thousand acres of 
 it runnin around forty and fifty dollars an acre." 
 
 " A thousand acres," mused Kelvin. " Is there 
 much more available land as cheap as this on the 
 island ? " asked Kelvin. 
 
 "More!" gasped Mr. Purser. "You don t 
 reckon you d want more, do you? " 
 
 " I haven t said so," replied Kelvin, smiling; " but 
 is there?" 
 
 " Any quantity of it," declared the other man. 
 " Long Island s about as funny a place as there is 
 on earth, I judge. It s two hundred and ten miles 
 long, and it s ten miles across in the narrowest place. 
 There ain t much of it worth shucks after a half 
 mile away from the shore. The edge of the island s 
 worth about a thousand dollars an acre, and the in- 
 side s worth about nothin . Pretty nigh three- 
 fourths of it s just plumb wilderness like this." 
 
 Phillip clambered out of the surrey with an in 
 stinctive desire to get his feet upon the ground. 
 With his cane he poked into the soil. It was of 
 loosely packed sand with but a slight alluvial ad-
 
 222 .THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 mixture, dotted with vegetation so scant that there 
 was scarcely enough green to relieve its dreary gray- 
 ness. He walked up a little knoll and calculatingly 
 surveyed the prospect in every direction. Deliber 
 ate planning was in his eyes, as Purser could see. 
 Again he dug his stick into the loose ground, mak 
 ing a hole of considerable depth, and from this hole 
 he took a handful of the soil and wrapped it up in 
 a handkerchief, much to Mr. Purser s surprise. 
 That shrewd old real-estate dealer turned around 
 to exchange glances of amused wonder with the 
 big man, who had sat silent in the back seat dur 
 ing the entire ride ; but the latter did not notice him. 
 He was watching every movement of Kelvin s with 
 concentrated alertness. Mr. Purser s eyes narrowed 
 as he studied the man. 
 
 " Do you see anything out this way you d want? " 
 asked Purser. 
 
 His question was unheard, the man was so ab 
 sorbed in watching Kelvin. Then, for the first 
 time, Mr. Purser noticed the huge negro. His 
 upper lip was curled back in a snarl, showing his 
 broad, yellow teeth and his blood-red gums; the 
 sinister scar upon his cheek had turned livid; his 
 eyes were blazing; his great, muscular hands were 
 twitching, and he was watching the stranger as a 
 crouching tiger might gaze upon its unconscious 
 prey.
 
 LONG ISLAND REAL ESTATE 223 
 
 " Gosh ! " exclaimed Mr. Purser involuntarily, 
 and then hastily ; " I say, stranger, do you see any 
 thing out thia way you want?" 
 
 " Oh ! " said the man with a start. " No, I don t 
 think this land would suit me." 
 
 " I reckoned it wouldn t," said Mr. Purser dryly. 
 
 Kelvin came walking slowly back, turning again 
 to take a comprehensive survey of the ground. 
 
 "Well, what do you think of it?" asked Mr. 
 Purser as he came up. 
 
 " I m not prepared to state just now," replied 
 Kelvin with a glance at the stranger. 
 
 " We ll go back to my office and talk it over. 
 I ll show you a plat of the grounds hereabouts," 
 said Purser. 
 
 His office proved to be the front room of his 
 little frame residence just outside of Safe Haven, 
 the desolate station at which Kelvin had alighted, 
 and they left the negro and the stranger, rather to 
 the latter gentleman s reluctance, in the surrey while 
 they went inside. 
 
 "Who is that fellow? " asked Kelvin as soon as 
 they were in the room. 
 
 " Don t know. I never seen him before," re 
 turned Purser. " But suffering snakes ! I get all 
 kinds out here. Now, I ll show you them plats. 
 Here s the piece of ground you was just lookin at. 
 There s two hundred acres in that patch, an I can
 
 22 4 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 get it for you for forty dollars an acre, like I told 
 you." 
 
 " That includes your commission, of course," said 
 Kelvin thoughtfully. " I don t know what your 
 commissions are, Mr. Purser, but I am satisfied that 
 they are none too small from my standpoint and 
 none too great from yours. If I had figured on 
 buying no more than this two hundred acres I d say 
 I d take this lot at your price. How much money, 
 on the average, do you make a year? " 
 
 Mr. Purser scratched his head. " That s pretty 
 nigh a personal question, ain t it? " he asked with a 
 dry smile. 
 
 " It s a business question," returned Kelvin. " I 
 want to buy all of this sort of land you can secure 
 within eighty-five miles of Broadway. I don t want 
 to pay excessive commissions, and especially I do 
 not want to pay whatever fancy prices the owners 
 may set upon it. I d like to hire you, for one year, 
 to represent me exclusively in this matter. How 
 much do you want ? " 
 
 " Well," said Mr. Purser, slowly calculating, 
 " last year I made nigh on to four thousand dol 
 lars in commissions." 
 
 " Very good," said Kelvin. " I ll give you five 
 thousand for this year, beginning now. Do you 
 suppose you can save me the amount of your 
 salary?"
 
 LONG ISLAND REAL ESTATE 225 
 
 " I reckon I could," Mr. Purser assured him, 
 succumbing to the temptation to brag upon himself 
 a trifle. " I reckon there ain t anybody on this 
 island can dicker for property as good as I can. 
 The point is they can t fool this old hayseed. I 
 know land when I see it, and I know a man when 
 I see him, and when he says I ll take so much, I 
 know exactly how much less he ll take. I m a 
 pretty good man to bargain; but say," and shrewd 
 lines came around the very keen eyes, " if I should 
 happen, while I was workin for you, to pick up a 
 little deal for shore property, I reckon you wouldn t 
 object?" 
 
 Kelvin smiled. " I don t think I should, so long 
 as you don t neglect my business," he said. 
 
 " I ain t one of the neglectin kind," declared Mr. 
 Purser ; " and I m much obliged." 
 
 " It s a bargain then, is it? " inquired Kelvin. 
 
 Mr. Purser, feeling that he had been well studied, 
 studied his own man in kind, and was apparently 
 satisfied. " Yes, I reckon it is. Begins right now, 
 don t it?" 
 
 " Begins right now," assented Kelvin. 
 
 " Well, then, this two hundred acres that the fel 
 low wants forty dollars for I reckon I can beat 
 him down to about thirty-five, actin as your agent." 
 
 Again Kelvin smiled. " There s a thousand of 
 your salary saved at once," said he. " Well, go
 
 226 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 ahead, Mr. Purser, do the very best you can. Make 
 a thorough search of the vacant lands on the island 
 and get me the best bargains possible, without mak 
 ing any noise about it. Draw on me at any time 
 for any amount of money you want. In the mean 
 time I think I had better leave a deposit with you," 
 and producing from his pocket a check-book he 
 wrote to the order of Mr. Purser, whom he had 
 thoroughly investigated before coming upon this 
 journey, a check the size of which made that gentle 
 man gasp, and which also cleared away any traces 
 of doubt that he might have had. 
 
 " I think that will be about all for the present," 
 said Kelvin, and rose to go. 
 
 At the same moment the stranger, who had been 
 sitting upon the front door-steps, got up and strolled 
 off a little distance, where he was most earnestly 
 inspecting the sky and the distant glimpse of the 
 bay, himself under the equally earnest inspection of 
 the negro, Sam. He went back to New York on 
 the same train with Kelvin. As was quite natural, 
 he took the subway where Kelvin did and followed 
 into the same car; he also left the train at the same 
 up-town station, and Kelvin noticed with a frown 
 that he followed up the street. When Kelvin and 
 Sam turned in at their hotel, however, the man 
 passed on, and Phillip convinced himself that the 
 thing had been merely a coincidence. It did seem
 
 LONG ISLAND REAL ESTATE 227 
 
 to him, however, as he thought the matter over, 
 that wherever he went recently he found some 
 poorly dressed stranger with him, always a differ 
 ent man, but always having that indefinable air of 
 being a workman out of a job. 
 
 That night the stranger in an obscure lodging- 
 house, wrote a long and laboriously scrawled let 
 ter, which he afterward translated into cipher, to 
 George Blagg, at Forest Lakes; and Kelvin, in his 
 splendidly furnished apartments, at the expensive 
 Esplanade, wrote a full report of his day s doings 
 to Henry Breed, also at Forest Lakes. 
 
 Kelvin seemed to be going in rather extensively 
 for real estate, for the morning found him poring 
 over an immense hand-drawn map of New York 
 City, whereon three large sections were blackly 
 shaded. While he was copying some figures from 
 a bulky type-written list, referring occasionally to 
 one of these shaded portions of the map, one Patsy 
 McCalken, a red-faced man with a mole on his nose 
 to combat his aims at dignity, was announced. To 
 him Kelvin displayed the blot over which he had 
 been busy, and asked pertinent questions about it. 
 
 " It s no use, Mr. Kelvin," announced Mr. Mc 
 Calken, " I don t know who s behind you, unless 
 it s old Henry Breed, but the man don t live that 
 can swing them precincts away from the Big Chief 
 and you say there s nawthin doin with him."
 
 228 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " But they re your precincts," objected Kelvin. 
 " I am told that they lie in the hollow of your hand; 
 that they vote as you tell them to the last man; 
 that they d follow you into the river." 
 
 Mr. McCalken swelled with visible pride. 
 " Them s the finest conducted precincts in all the 
 city," he justifiably boasted. " Any man that don t 
 pay attention to the word had better move, and that 
 settles it. But say, " and curious little wrinkles 
 rolled up on both sides of his mole, " it can only be 
 handled one way, now. It votes the same ticket 
 year in and year out, and if I was to try to switch 
 it well, you see it s all a part of the organiza 
 tion. We just got to stick together ; see ? " 
 
 " I see," said Kelvin with a smile. " In other 
 words, you all know entirely too much about each 
 other." 
 
 Mr. McCalken only grinned. " Anyhow, there s 
 no chance on earth, no matter how much was no 
 matter how strong the arguments that might be held 
 out." 
 
 " All right, then," concluded Kelvin briskly. " If 
 you can t swing that district to my principal I ll 
 have to take it away from you." 
 
 Mr. McCalken s grin became a guffaw. " When 
 you do that," said he, taking his hat, " I ll say you re 
 a bigger man than Dick Croker ever was."
 
 LONG ISLAND REAL ESTATE 229 
 
 " We expect to make Mr. Croker a dim and faded 
 memory of ineffectiveness," announced Kelvin, smil 
 ing and looking at his watch. 
 
 His next caller was of a different type, a big man 
 with strong nose and jaw, a good brow and a keen 
 eye, but bearing about him, in some indefinable 
 sense, the marks of a losing fight. 
 
 " Hello, Pellman," said Phillip heartily, coming 
 forward to shake hands with him. " It s as good 
 to see you as it was to hear your voice over the 
 phone the other day. How are things coming with 
 you?" 
 
 " Rotten, thank you," confessed Pellman with a 
 wry smile. 
 
 " Haven t succeeded in getting a good start yet, 
 have you ? " Kelvin bluntly surmised. 
 
 "What are you trying to do? Rub it in? " de 
 manded Pellman, frowning. 
 
 " Certainly not," responded Kelvin reproachfully. 
 " I m treating the whole thing as a matter of course. 
 Breed and myself broke you wide open when we 
 broke the Stock Exchange, and I want to know, for 
 business reasons, exactly where you stand. If you 
 are on your feet again, why I m glad of it. We ll 
 have lunch together, and I ll beat you a game of 
 billiards. If you re not, however, I am able to 
 throw a big chance your way."
 
 230 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " You may go right ahead with the chance/ de 
 clared Pellman eagerly, hitching forward his chair. 
 " I don t mind admitting that you broke me so com 
 pletely I can t start anything big enough to inspire 
 confidence." 
 
 " Would it inspire any confidence if you were 
 known to be engineering the most enormous real- 
 estate deal ever consummated in New York ? " 
 
 Pellman s eyes began to brighten. " It would 
 have to be a big one," he warned. 
 
 " Would you call it a big one to buy these dis 
 tricts ? " and Kelvin indicated the three shaded spots 
 on his map. 
 
 " Buy them ! " gasped Pellman. He barely 
 glanced at the map and then surveyed Kelvin in as 
 tonishment. " Why, man " He paused ; words 
 were lame things. 
 
 "Well, I want them," declared Kelvin. "Of 
 course, when you get through they will represent a 
 pyramid of mortgages, but in the meantime it will 
 take a lot of cash backing, which I have, as you 
 probably know." They both smiled. " The reason 
 I have sent for you is that I must not appear in 
 this, even by the slightest hint, nor must Mr. Breed. 
 Do you care to undertake the deal for immediate 
 manipulation? " 
 
 "Well," returned Pellman with mock hesitation,
 
 LONG ISLAND REAL ESTATE 231 
 
 " I don t think I could start at it in much less than 
 thirty minutes." 
 
 In less than an hour after Pellman had gone, 
 Senator Sawyer found Kelvin busy over another 
 large map, this time of the United States. Here 
 and there districts were lightly shaded, in other 
 places they were cross-hatched, in others left in pure 
 white. The senator, a portly gentleman with bushy 
 white eyebrows, and with a bland purse-mouthness 
 of expression suitable to passing the collection-plate 
 of a pleasant Sunday morning, was gravely glad 
 to see his dear young friend, Mr. Kelvin, gravely 
 anxious about his physical condition, and as gravely 
 solicitous about the health of his dear old friend, 
 Mr. Henry Breed. 
 
 " As for myself," Kelvin smilingly informed him, 
 "I shall leave you to judge; as for Mr. Breed, he 
 is hearty enough to desire myself and Mr. Rollins 
 nominated for the offices, respectively, of president 
 and vice-president of the United States, by your 
 party, at the convention this coming spring." 
 
 Senator Sawyer sat down heavily, and placing his 
 hands upon the arms of his chair with his shoulders 
 hunched and his elbows akimbo, regarded Mr. Kel 
 vin long and silently, waiting for the signal to break 
 into a beaming smile. 
 
 " I have been very busy over the proposition,"
 
 232 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Kelvin went on. " On this map you will find, left 
 in white, the portions of the United States in which 
 Mr. Breed s personal influence and forces can aid 
 decisively in the control of the party organization. 
 These portions that are lightly shaded represent dis 
 tricts and states in which missionary work is now 
 being carried on. The darkly shaded portions are 
 districts with which .we expect to have the most 
 trouble." 
 
 Senator Sawyer glanced, unseeing, at the map, 
 and then resumed his staring survey of Kelvin. 
 " Am I to understand that you are in earnest about 
 this?" the senator painfully inquired. 
 
 " Certainly," replied Kelvin calmly ; " as earnest 
 as we were about breaking up Mr. Hepperdon s 
 monopoly." 
 
 Air. Sawyer winced. He had once been Hepper 
 don s chief senator; he had attended to Mr. Hepper 
 don s little matters of legislation for a great many 
 years, and had only recently, upon the unfortunate 
 dissolution of Mr. Hepperdon s combine, associated 
 himself with Mr. Breed. 
 
 " We have every prospect of success," Kelvin 
 evenly resumed. " In the first place, as the abso 
 lute proprietor of every ounce of bread and cereal 
 food stuff in the United States, Mr. Breed had a 
 great many friends and useful advisers, among 
 the various legislative bodies of the country."
 
 LONG ISLAND REAL ESTATE 233 
 
 Senator Sawyer gravely nodded his head. " In the 
 second place, after he had secured control over every 
 mile of railroad in the United States, Mr. Breed 
 became possessed, by acquisition, of a great many 
 other friends and useful advisers theretofore at 
 tached to the railroads." Senator Sawyer squirmed 
 slightly in his chair. " In the third place, through 
 his control of the railroads, Mr. Breed took a no 
 tion to do a little trust-busting which proved highly 
 successful; and thereupon he became possessed, by 
 reason of his immense anchorage facilities of sev 
 eral other suddenly attached friends and useful ad 
 visers. Quite a little army, Senator." 
 
 " Y-e-s," slowly admitted Mr. Sawyer with great 
 mourn fulness. 
 
 The senator had been harboring quite other plans 
 than those proposed by Kelvin, plans in which he 
 was vitally interested ; and the whole of Kelvin s 
 conversation had been about as pleasant as an hour 
 in a dentist s chair. 
 
 " You will find, Senator," went on Kelvin, " that 
 the campaign is perfectly mapped out. I have se 
 cured a large suite on the floor just above this one 
 for your headquarters. You will readily under 
 stand that I wish to remain, as does Mr. Rollins, 
 an ostensible dark horse, up to the very hour of 
 the nomination, and your operations will need to be 
 as quietly conducted as possible. The headquarters
 
 234 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 will comprise private apartments for yourself and 
 such others as you care to have with you, and all 
 living expenses will, of course, go in with the other 
 items of expenditure. There will, naturally, be a 
 generous honorarium attached. I shall be highly 
 gratified if you will take charge of the bureau, as 
 will Mr. Breed and Mr. Rollins." 
 
 Mr. Breed s request, coming through Kelvin, was 
 an order. Senator Sawyer rose with a sigh, but he 
 immediately beamed with a cheerful, even a benevo 
 lent, smile. 
 
 " The entire matter comes as a surprise to me," 
 said he ; " but as a very pleasant surprise. I can 
 see a most interesting campaign stretching before 
 us, and it will afford me keen delight if I can in 
 any way contribute to the success of two such re 
 markable young men as yourself and Mr. Rollins." 
 
 Herbert Rensselaer called, the picture of well- 
 dressed laziness and the novelist s ideal of a healthy 
 young club-man with nothing on his mind but his 
 hair. Kelvin, who had not smoked that day, ac 
 cepted a cigarette gratefully, lit it, leaned back in 
 his chair, fixed his eyes upon Rensselaer, and rested. 
 
 " By George, I don t know how you do it, Bert ! " 
 he declared. " In the old cow-punching days you 
 were twice as active as myself; but now well, I ll 
 bet you have just come from the Volute Club, four 
 blocks away, in a taxi."
 
 LONG ISLAND REAL ESTATE 235 
 
 " Tell me the amount of the stakes, and I ll pay 
 you," drawled Herbert. " I m all that you say I 
 am, Phill, but it s only a pose. Beneath my cravat 
 pants a bosom that is seething with discontent. 
 You know the conditions last scion of the historic 
 old Rensselaers and all that rot; poor as a church 
 mouse; my revered aunt cheerfully sacrificing the 
 absurdly large salary which she denies that she re 
 ceives, to make a dwaddler out of me, because a 
 Rensselaer must not work. I am supposed to repay 
 her by marrying the aforesaid Lillian, who doesn t 
 know it yet. Would working be any more sordid 
 than that? Would anything be more sordid than 
 my sitting here talking about it all ? Honestly, Kel 
 vin, if something doesn t turn up upon which I may 
 expend a little man-power energy I ll explode by 
 and by." 
 
 " Just possess your soul in patience," advised Kel 
 vin, smiling. " Wait until I am elected president, 
 and I ll make a cabinet officer of you." 
 
 " Tis the way of the world," sighed Rensselaer. 
 " I come to my friend to make my whine and be 
 soothed with sympathy, and I meet with cold, un 
 feeling jests." 
 
 " No, honor bright, I mean it," declared Kelvin, 
 blowing a thin line of blue smoke at the ceiling. 
 
 " Nonsense," protested Herbert. " I have no 
 qualifications, old chap."
 
 236 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " Yes, but you have," insisted Kelvin, speaking 
 quite seriously. " You possess the leading qualifica 
 tions. I know you of old. You can not be influ 
 enced, coerced, or bought." 
 
 Young Rensselaer suddenly straightened up in 
 his chair with his hands gripping the arms of it, his 
 whole tense figure startlingly unlike the listless form 
 that had at first lounged there. " You are right," 
 said he with a snap of his jaws ; " and you may bet 
 your last penny upon it that I ll carry out your 
 orders absolutely, wherever you put me, whether 
 in the cabinet or at the head of an army." 
 
 " You might even have a chance at that," re 
 turned Kelvin dryly. " In the meantime, since I 
 suppose you came around to entice me to idleness, 
 how shall we waste some time ? " 
 
 " Oh, dinner and the theater, I suppose," replied 
 the other, relapsing into his drawl of indifference. 
 
 " Very well," assented Kelvin ; " suppose you meet 
 me at six thirty. I still have Rollins and Baker and 
 a couple of political burglars to see this afternoon." 
 
 His " political burglars " came first, but of these 
 he made short shrift, introducing them, as he did 
 Baker, who was at the head of Breed s publicity de 
 partment for the United Food Company of New 
 Jersey, to Senator Sawyer, who had already taken 
 possession of the magnificent headquarters in the 
 Esplanade and was ordering an elaborate luncheon.
 
 LONG ISLAND REAL ESTATE 237 
 
 Rollins came later, trim and precise and as fas 
 tidiously clean as ever, and feeling athletic to his 
 finger-tips. 
 
 " I have a brilliant solution for your Long Island 
 transportation problem," he began with enthusiasm. 
 " I can deliver commuter trains to your farthest 
 point, if it does not exceed the eighty-five-mile run 
 you promised, in one hour from the bridge subway 
 station." 
 
 " You don t say," returned Kelvin in surprise. 
 " I was going to tell you the details of the joke on 
 poor Sawyer, but this is better. How do you do 
 it?" 
 
 " Rather neatly, I think," replied Rollins. " The 
 first rush-hour train, equipped with heavy motors, 
 will carry eight cars, one for each of the last eight 
 stops on the line. One minute later a train will 
 follow hauling a car for each of the next last eight 
 stops. The next will go an even shorter distance, 
 and so on. None of these rush-hour express trains 
 will stop. At its own station the car for that place 
 will simply cut itself off, make a flying-switch, and 
 become a local trolley under its own motor. I can 
 maintain an eighty-five-mile-an-hour speed from one 
 end of the line to the other in that way. Local 
 trains, of course, will run at the usual rate." 
 
 Kelvin nodded in satisfaction. " I knew you 
 could work it out," he commented. " I ll Have the
 
 238 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 necessary permits in two weeks, and you can begin 
 construction at once. In the meantime, let me show 
 you a new map," and from the thick pile of such 
 diagrams upon his desk he drew one showing the 
 entire consolidated railroad system of the United 
 States. " Here is what your railroad control has 
 done. It has accomplished the political dominion 
 of half the United States. Each of those lines 
 paralleled in red has conquered its kingdom. I shall 
 not rest until every mile of it has done its duty. 
 The old system of political control is disintegrated, 
 and the new era has come in. Rollins, in your 
 mastership of every mile of railroad in the United 
 States, you have the most powerful political engine 
 ever devised by man." 
 
 " I don t like it to be prostituted to this use," 
 protested Rollins. 
 
 " The same old cry," returned Kelvin with a 
 slightly exasperated laugh. " You ought to be 
 satisfied. I don t know how many millions of graft 
 you have eliminated. You ve equalized freight- 
 rates, so that the small shipper has an equal chance 
 with the big one. You ve been able to break up a 
 score of top-heavy monopolies and trusts. You ve 
 accomplished at least half your designs." 
 
 " I know," granted Rollins ; " but, even so, I have 
 been compelled for political reasons to give rebates 
 which I had sworn I would never give. I have been
 
 LONG ISLAND REAL ESTATE 239 
 
 compelled for political purposes to make concessions 
 which I had sworn I would never make. I have 
 been compelled to do a great many things against 
 my conscience, against my notions of public policy, 
 against my most cherished dreams." 
 
 " You re the most persistent chap," complained 
 Kelvin. " When we have a Congress and a Senate 
 of our own choice, we can carry out all the Utopian 
 plans of both Breed and ourselves. Just now it is 
 necessary to give something in order to take again. 
 These concessions that you are making are only in 
 vestments, as Breed would say." 
 
 Rollins looked up curiously. " I don t quite 
 understand Breed," said he. " He seems at times 
 to possess all his old shrewdness, but at other times 
 to be involved in a maze of mysticism." 
 
 Kelvin frowned. " He s spending too much time 
 with his Bible," he declared. " He s intemperate 
 with it."
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 LILLIAN PAYS PHILLIP AN ENTIRELY 
 UNCONVENTIONAL VISIT 
 
 KELVIN, returning shortly after midnight 
 from his evening with Rensselaer, went di 
 rectly to his own sleeping-apartment, which 
 was at the extreme end of his suite. Sam, crouch 
 ing on the floor in the corner with pillows and 
 cushions at his back, opened his coal-black eyes un- 
 blinkingly, passing instantly from profound sleep 
 to alert wake fulness, and, having without a word 
 gravely inspected his master for a few moments, 
 arose to his huge height, turned down the covers 
 of Phillip s bed, and laid out sleeping-garments. 
 Kelvin having by this time sat down, Sam removed 
 his master s shoes and placed comfortable slippers 
 on his feet. While he was at work he looked up 
 with a sudden shrill chuckle and a grin so wide that 
 it broke into queer curves the long, straight scar 
 on his cheek. 
 
 " What are you laughing at, Sam ? " asked Phil 
 lip with the smile of amusement that Sam s hilarity 
 always brought to his face. 
 
 240
 
 AN UNCONVENTIONAL VISIT 241 
 
 " Oh, jes nothin ," declared Sam, and chuckled 
 still more. 
 
 " I bet you are thinking of Lucy," charged 
 Phillip. 
 
 " Ah reckon Ah am," confessed Sam with a laugh 
 that ended in a shrill falsetto. " Lucy an sumpin 
 else." 
 
 " Something else, eh? What is it? " 
 
 " Ah ain done s pose to tell," giggled Sam. 
 " Got t have a secret once in a while, boss." 
 
 Sam busied himself about the remaining prepara 
 tions for Kelvin s retiring, and while he did so 
 gave vent to occasional chuckles to which, however, 
 Kelvin paid but little attention, for already he was 
 immersed in that half-hour of revel in the vast, 
 gilded halls of the future which was his one habitual 
 dissipation before retiring, and he scarcely realized 
 when Sam had departed for the night, so occupied 
 was he with his boundless enterprises and ambitions. 
 Olympus ! With that height alone would he be con 
 tent and he had no bodily or spiritual, mental or 
 moral clog to weight him down. In that he ex 
 ulted. He was temperate to the extreme; he had 
 permitted himself no vices, large or small; he had. 
 kept himself free from all entanglements with 
 women; had even denied himself that greatest of 
 all weaknesses or else that greatest of all 
 strengths love! Stern, inflexible, merciless, un-
 
 242 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 deviating, there was no flaw whatever in his 
 weapons or in his armor; and there would be no 
 stopping him. 
 
 In his exultation he rose to his full height, obey 
 ing an instinct which impelled him to stand that he 
 might feel the superb strength of his body and of 
 his soul and of his will, untrammeled by any weak 
 ening support. As he did so the slight and cautious 
 click of a knob and the slight, careful creak of a 
 door startled him. He turned hastily in the direc 
 tion from which the sounds had come. The end 
 door of his suite was the customary twin affair by 
 which hotel apartments are separated. On taking 
 these apartments he had tried his own door and 
 found it locked; but, nevertheless, it was this door 
 which was opening! He quickly swung his hand 
 back to his hip pocket and held himself poised for 
 whatever might occur. A touch of bright color 
 and a glittering eye were visible now in the crack 
 of the door, and then it swung suddenly wide, and 
 Kelvin s hand dropped limply to his side; for the 
 apparition which confronted him proved to be 
 Lillian Breed, slender but exquisitely rounded in the 
 silk kimono which revealed her white throat and her 
 shapely forearms, warm against the soft crimson 
 fabric. Her dainty feet were incased in fur-edged 
 slippers of red felt. Her hair and her eyes seemed 
 blacker than ever. Her face, a perfect oval, was
 
 AN UNCONVENTIONAL VISIT 243 
 
 warmed by the rich color of abundant blood. Her 
 pointed chin was dimpled, and her scarlet lips were 
 curved in a smile, half of mischief and half of 
 delight. 
 
 " Lillian ! " gasped Kelvin. 
 
 Her eyes sparkling, she put her fingers upon her 
 lips and noiselessly closed her own door, then 
 Phillip s, behind her, then advanced to him with out 
 stretched hands. He took them in his own as a 
 matter of course, but held her at arm s length. 
 
 "What are you doing here?" he demanded. 
 " Have you gone mad ? " 
 
 " Not at all," she laughed gaily. " I m quite sane 
 and sensible, thank you. It was lonesome at Forest 
 Lakes, so I brought Mrs. Rensselaer up to chaperon 
 me for a week s shopping, and just now, after mak 
 ing sure that you would be quite alone for the rest 
 of the evening, I have merely dropped in to have 
 a chat with my old friend." 
 
 "Mrs. Rensselaer? Where is she?" asked 
 Phillip. 
 
 " Sound asleep and snoring in her own apart 
 ment, which is on the other side of mine, with the 
 bath-room between and my door locked. I attended 
 to that, all right, you may be sure. You don t 
 seem at all glad to see me, though," and she pouted 
 with much coquetry, though her shining eyes, up 
 turned to him, belied the pout.
 
 244 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " I m not," answered Phillip, pushing her away 
 almost roughly. " This is the utmost folly. You 
 must return to your own room, and in the morning 
 you must move to some other floor or I shall. No, 
 you must go to some other hotel." 
 
 She only laughed at him and put her hand upon 
 his arm, still half outstretched as if to hold her 
 away. More than once Phillip had rebuffed her, 
 but now she knew her power. It w r as an exquisitely 
 tapered hand that lay upon his sleeve, and an ab 
 surdly small hand ; but he suddenly felt its quite ap 
 preciable weight, and its insidious warmth. 
 
 " I sha n t move from the hotel," she said, look 
 ing up into his eyes and laughing as she shook her 
 head. " I sha n t move from these apartments. I 
 sha n t move from this room, even, until I get ready 
 to go. Phillip, I have been ordered around like a 
 child ever since I can remember. I have had to sit 
 in a corner and merely watch great things being 
 done. Born with all the nervous energy and all the 
 vast capabilities that made my grandfather rise from 
 a poor boy to the richest man in the world, fate 
 cursed me by making me a girl, with no outlet for all 
 the burning desires that seethe within me ; and now 
 I m going to revolt. I m going to have the things 
 I want, right or wrong, and among them I m going 
 to have you ! " 
 
 " Lillian ! " he gasped, and drew back from her ;
 
 AN UNCONVENTIONAL VISIT 245 
 
 and yet he could not look down into her blazing 
 eyes, upon her flushed cheeks, upon her moist, red 
 lips, upon the rounded column of her throat, with 
 revolt. She saw the widening pupils of his eyes, 
 and knew that this Achilles, like him of old and like 
 every warrior since, was vulnerable. 
 
 A soft-footed hallman, paying special attention 
 to those apartments, listened with all his ears. He 
 could not distinguish words, but he felt quite sure 
 of the hum of voices. 
 
 " You are a conqueror," Lillian went on, draw 
 ing closer. " Your hand is the hand of might, the 
 hand that could grasp and wield with relentless 
 power either sword or scepter. You have in your 
 face the sternness and the force of the old vikings, 
 and would be as ruthless. You do not know how 
 I, too, love power and all that represents power. I 
 love it so much that I could worship it even while 
 it crushed and destroyed me. The very strength of 
 these arms I want for mine. Do you remember one 
 night when we were walking in the woods at Forest 
 Lakes ? " Her hands stole up to his shoulders. " I 
 wrenched my ankle and you caught me and, for 
 one breathless instant, held me ; held me tightly and 
 strongly to you. I felt your heart beat against 
 mine; I felt your breath upon my cheeks; I felt 
 your strong arms around me." Her bare arm had 
 slipped up and slid around his neck, and suddenly
 
 246 ,THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 she had clasped both of them about him and clung 
 to him. For a moment longer he resisted, and then, 
 shaken and torn by the fierce storm of emotions 
 that raged within him, and swept from the impreg 
 nable base upon which he had pedestaled himself, 
 he suddenly crushed her to him and rained kisses 
 upon her smooth brow, her silken eyelids, her burn 
 ing cheeks, her soft lips; and these last clung to him, 
 clung while the mad fever that had suddenly pos 
 sessed them both swept them in great waves of 
 flame.
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 LILLIAN, BRAZEN IN HER TRIUMPH, DEALS MORTAL 
 BLOWS TO ELSIE AND BLAGG 
 
 KELVIN met Mrs. Rensselaer and Lillian at 
 breakfast, and they talked of the opera and 
 gowns, of automobiles and an international 
 wedding. After breakfast he bought the political 
 control of an entire state with the litigative clientage 
 of a thousand miles of railroad. He met in the hall 
 of his floor Elsie White, and, whatever anguish it 
 gave his soul to meet now this girl who had loved 
 him, and loved him yet, in all purity and tenderness, 
 he talked calmly with her, chatting pleasantly about 
 her father s garden at Forest Lakes. He let a con 
 tract for a million dollars worth of grading and 
 cement sidewalks. He saw Sam and Lucy laugh 
 ing in the servants elevator, understood Sam s 
 hilarity of the night before, and had an inkling of 
 how his door had come to be unlocked. He went 
 to the theater at night with Mrs. Rensselaer and 
 Lillian, and, after they had returned and Mrs. 
 Rensselaer had retired, the soft-footed hallman 
 listened again to the low voices in Phillip s apart- 
 247
 
 248 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 ments, and sent his second cipher message to George 
 Blagg, who, by this time, was hollow-eyed and pale 
 with suffering and murderous ! 
 
 On the following day Phillip, alone with Sam in 
 the wilderness of Long Island, was shot at. 
 Scarcely had the report sounded when Sam, crouch 
 ing low to the ground like an animal and running 
 with neck and head and gorilla-like arms out 
 stretched, plunged into the woods. He was gone 
 fully an hour, and rejoined Phillip at the station. 
 His eyes were bloodshot and he was panting, while 
 his lips twitched back over his teeth now and then; 
 but he was smiling! Phillip, studying his face 
 curiously, asked him no questions, and Sam volun 
 teered no information. 
 
 At the end of the week, Lillian, with her cortege, 
 went back to lonely Forest Lakes. Where Kelvin 
 and Rollins and Herbert Rensselaer had helped to 
 enliven the huge empty house and the immense acre 
 age it, too, empty except for the small army of 
 gaunt and grim and grizzled woodsmen, who, with 
 guns slung comfortably in their arms, kept close 
 sentry now there remained but Henry Breed and 
 George Blagg and Doctor Zelphan. Zelphan met 
 her first as she came up on the porch, peering at 
 her through his thick glasses with the same curious 
 regard that he always bestowed upon her, the same 
 that he would have given to a strange and brilliantly
 
 LILLIAN DEALS MORTAL BLOWS 249 
 
 colored insect. Suddenly his eyes lighted as they 
 caught her glance. For an instant these two looked 
 into each other s souls, and Lillian felt her cheeks 
 burning; but in an instant more she had closed those 
 portals of her inmost consciousness and bestowed 
 upon him a stare of wilful insolence, whereat Doc 
 tor Zelphan turned as she swept through the open 
 door, and, rubbing his fat palms softly together, 
 chuckled. 
 
 Lillian stopped for a moment in the dim old 
 library where Henry Breed sat in absorbed con 
 templation, his elbows on his desk, his leathern 
 cheeks and hollow temples supported in his lean old 
 palms, and his old, well-thumbed Bible open before 
 him. He looked up, unseeing, as she entered, and 
 placed his long forefinger upon the passage he had 
 been reading. 
 
 " Cast abroad the rage of thy wrath/ " he sol 
 emnly intoned, " and behold every one that is 
 proud and abase him. Look on every one that 
 is proud and bring him low, and tread down the 
 wicked in their place. 
 
 As he finished, a look of intense malignity over 
 spread his emaciated features, straightened the curve 
 of this thin, flexible lips, and glowed in his glitter 
 ing eye, and his right hand slowly reached forward 
 and clutched as if strangling some imaginary foe. 
 Lillian, though possessing but little actual affection
 
 250 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 for her grandfather, had still a strong bond of sym 
 pathy with him, and was shocked at the change 
 that had taken place in him during her one week of 
 absence. 
 
 " Grandfather," she said, sweeping toward him 
 with the quick decision that characterized her, " you 
 are spending too much time in this stuffy old room, 
 since there is no one here but Zelphan. It is per 
 fectly glorious outdoors. The car is still outside. 
 I want you to come and ride with me. I want to 
 talk with you. I want to tell you a lot of things 
 about my trip." 
 
 She had put her hand upon his shoulder, and the 
 touch seemed to arouse him instantly. He reached 
 up and took her hand between his own and gazed 
 at her with a slow return of his habitual shrewd 
 expression. 
 
 " You are looking charming," he commented. 
 " Your trip has done you good. I never saw your 
 eyes so bright and your cheeks so red. It has been 
 very lonesome without you. Did you see Kelvin ? " 
 There was eagerness in the question. 
 
 " Yes, indeed," she replied. " He s accomplish 
 ing wonders." 
 
 " I know," he said, and glanced at a pile of wire 
 less telegrams, strung upon a desk hook that lay at 
 his right hand. " He s a marvelous young man, 
 that. He is the instrument of Providence, placed
 
 Elsie turned slowly, a flush of crimson mounting to her brow
 
 LILLIAN DEALS MORTAL BLOWS 251 
 
 in my hands against the day of chastisement and 
 purification, and of the new birth." 
 
 " I don t know about that," returned Lillian dryly. 
 " I am rather inclined to think that you are the 
 instrument in his hand." 
 
 " The tail can not wag the dog," said Breed, smil 
 ing. " The things Kelvin aims to do for himself 
 are the things I want him to do for my own ends, 
 and if he ever gets too big for me I ll break him 
 as I would any other efficient but dangerous tool. 
 But tell me about him." 
 
 " That s just what I wanted to do," said Lillian. 
 " Wait until I run up and get into something more 
 comfortable than these traveling-clothes, and then 
 I ll go out and drive around through the park with 
 you and talk. I want to see the place again. It 
 seems as if I had been gone a year." 
 
 Leaving her grandfather to muse anew over the 
 vault beneath his feet, where reposed the silent 
 weight of power only biding its time to reveal its 
 resistless might, Lillian hurried to her apartments, 
 where she found Elsie White standing before a 
 photograph of Phillip. Lillian smiled cruelly as she 
 viewed this tableau, and stood silent until Elsie, 
 feeling her presence in the room, turned slowly, a 
 flush of crimson mounting to her brow as she met 
 Lillian s gaze. 
 
 " Get out my gray dress, the one with the garnet
 
 252 ,THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 points," the latter ordered crisply, paying no ap 
 parent attention to Elsie s momentary confusion. 
 " I have only time to wash my face and hands and 
 have my hair done over. Have my bath ready in 
 three-quarters of an hour after I leave the house." 
 
 When her traveling-gown had been exchanged for 
 a fresh one, she sat before the dresser upon which 
 Phillip s photograph was standing. " He s a hand 
 some fellow, isn t he ? " she observed carelessly as 
 Elsie began to smooth out her hair. 
 
 " Who? " asked Elsie quietly. 
 
 Lillian glanced sardonically at Elsie in the glass, 
 but the girl back of her had her eyes bent steadily 
 upon her work. 
 
 " Kelvin," answered Lillian. " He s built like an 
 Adonis and muscled like a young Hercules; but the 
 touch of his hands, strong as they are, is like vel 
 vet." She was keeping her cold eyes now steadily 
 fixed upon those other eyes veiled beneath their 
 downcast lids, and that cruel smile sat fixedly upon 
 her mouth. " His eyes," she went on, " are as cold 
 and clear as the winter stars, and as difficult to 
 warm, but when at last they blaze, they are like 
 unquenchable coals. His lips " she lingered over 
 the item with a relish, still watching that pale face 
 " his lips are cool and firm " the hands busily 
 engaged with her black tresses trembled slightly 
 " but suddenly they are like fire. I think I shall
 
 LILLIAN DEALS MORTAL BLOWS 253 
 
 marry him! Elsie! You hurt me dreadfully that 
 time! You are becoming more and more clumsy 
 every day. I am afraid that I shall have to dis 
 charge you," and, having inflicted all the pain that 
 she could, she went down the hall singing blithely. 
 A stranger, hearing her, would have thought that 
 there was nothing but gentleness and guileless joy 
 in her heart. 
 
 She stopped in at Blagg s office. He had heard 
 her coming. He was receiving a message at the 
 time, and the light of the tubes gave to his emaciated 
 face a ghastly wanness. As she entered he only 
 glanced up with smoldering hate. Lillian smiled 
 back in all her witchery at that black look. She 
 knew that she had never been more beautiful than 
 now. She knew that her beauty was a perpetual 
 torment to this man, and in the absence of more 
 entertaining prey she had played deliberately upon 
 the love she had found in him, had heightened and 
 tortured it, had encouraged and then repelled it, 
 had toyed with him as a cat does with a captured 
 and wing-broken bird. She stood still, smiling at 
 him until he had finished. 
 
 " You don t seem half glad to see me, Mr. Blagg," 
 she remonstrated. 
 
 " No ! " he answered her, and his voice was tense 
 and strained. " I wish you had never come back. 
 I wish that you had died ! "
 
 254 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " Oh, tut, tut," she said, laughing, though a glit 
 ter came into her eyes. She was forewarned. 
 " That is not a very cheerful reception. It seems to 
 me that you are becoming old and peevish." 
 
 " I am," he asserted. " Lillian " 
 
 " Miss Breed, if you please," she corrected him. 
 
 " I ll call you by a less formal name than that if 
 I like," he flared. " I know every step that you 
 took while you were away." 
 
 " Indeed ? " she said pleasantly, realizing for the 
 first time that there was some basis for the hints 
 that Blagg had often given her of a powerful or 
 ganization of which he was the head. 
 
 Her calmness angered him. " Whatever of awe 
 I ever had for you is gone," he declared. " What 
 ever of respect I ever had for you is swept away, 
 Whatever of love I felt is dead." 
 
 " Then we may be at peace again," she mocked 
 him. " Your awe and your respect and your love 
 were all impertinences. I don t know why I didn t 
 long ago have you discharged." 
 
 " I know why you didn t," he replied savagely. 
 " You wanted to keep me here to practise on, and 
 I was willing enough, God knows. But now that I 
 know you for what yon are, now that you have 
 made yourself common 
 
 " Be careful ! " she warned him. " It is not safe 
 to talk that way to me."
 
 LILLIAN DEALS MORTAL BLOWS 255 
 
 "Safe or unsafe," he cried, "what do I care? 
 God! I have died a thousand deaths in the past 
 week, and I can not be further harmed." 
 
 " Too bad," she murmured in mock sympathy. 
 " Deaths among the lower orders of the animal 
 kingdom seemed quite common last week. They 
 just found one poor fool in the Long Island woods 
 this morning. He looked like a workingman. A 
 revolver was by his side, but he had not been 
 shot. He had been strangled. The marks of 
 strong fingers that must have been enormous 
 were on his throat. His death will probably al 
 ways remain a mystery. That s a bad place down 
 there. Somebody shot at Kelvin there, earlier 
 in the week, but it was a foolish waste of ammuni 
 tion. Kelvin bears a charmed life." She was 
 watching Blagg s face narrowly, and for every 
 wince that he gave and tried to conceal, she exulted. 
 " By the way, you have not yet stated what has 
 made this alleged tremendous change in you." She 
 looked at him mockingly, a half smile upon her lips. 
 
 " Are you daring me? " he cried, his nervous ten 
 sion increased to the breaking-point by her recital 
 of the failure of his plans, the first news he had 
 received of it. 
 
 " Tell me," she defied him. 
 
 " Have you not made yourself Kelvin s mis 
 tress?"
 
 256 ,THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 He had expected to overwhelm her with this, to 
 meet her indignant denial, to have to brave her 
 fury. Instead, she let her half-veiled eyes rest 
 cruelly upon him, and, looking back over her shoul 
 der at him with that mocking smile still curling her 
 lips, she walked toward the door. 
 
 " Yes," she said. 
 
 He recoiled as though she had struck him a mor 
 tal blow. He sank back in his chair, his hands 
 clenched convulsively, his face turned ghastly pale 
 and its ghastliness heightened by the green glow of 
 the tube, his mouth half parted, his eyes staring 
 fixedly. His breath and even the beating of his 
 heart seemed momentarily to have stopped. Rigid 
 and immovable as he would ever be in death he 
 sat, and from the stairway there floated up to his 
 numbed ears a gay little song that Lillian lightly 
 hummed as she tripped down to the library.
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 WHEREIN KELVIN EVICTS ENOUGH VOTERS TO 
 POPULATE A CITY OF HIS OWN 
 
 THE nomination of Kelvin and Rollins came 
 as an astounding surprise to the public, for 
 their names, in connection with the presi 
 dency, had been carefully suppressed throughout, 
 though Senator Sawyer s publicity bureau had kept 
 the papers full of both men, in other ways. They 
 were the new economic conscience; they were the 
 new commercial philanthropy; they were the new 
 justice; they were the new foe of the oppressor and 
 friend of the poor. It was retold how Kelvin, 
 with Breed s money back of him, had broken up 
 the iniquitous Stock Exchange and had reassembled 
 it upon a sane basis; how he had, by a magnificent 
 coup, obtained control of all the railroads in the 
 United States and placed that control in the hands 
 of Rollins, who had shattered monopolies right and 
 left and had made equitable freight-rates so that 
 the poor man could ship as cheaply as the large 
 corporations ; but above all it was retold, with many 
 embellishments and illustrations, how Kelvin, in- 
 257
 
 258 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 dividually, had forced Henry Breed to reduce the 
 price of bread permanently from five to four cents 
 a loaf. That was the great story of all; that was 
 the sympathetic story, the heart-appeal story, the 
 story that touched every man s tearful concern for 
 the poor man s pocketbook ! 
 
 A dozen favorite sons were first put in nomina 
 tion at the convention, and then, in a neat little 
 speech of forty-five minutes, Senator Killan, re 
 counting the story of the breaking up of the Stock 
 Exchange and of the capture of the railroads, the 
 smashing of the trusts, and the reduction of the price 
 of bread, put up Kelvin s name for consideration. 
 Pandemonium broke loose as per schedule, one 
 of those carefully arranged spontaneous outbursts so 
 dear to American politics, and on its crest the nom 
 ination of Kelvin as candidate for the high office 
 of president of the United States, the youngest man 
 ever to achieve that honor, became but a mere count 
 ing of long-since-arranged- for ballots; after which 
 the convention, much more calmly and rationally, 
 proceeded to nominate Rollins. 
 
 One-half of the public all of which was sur 
 prised at first received those two names with 
 gasps of gratitude; the other half received them with 
 snarls of scorn, and the campaign was on. Kelvin, 
 refusing to make a mountebank of himself, let his 
 managers fight it out, for he was busy. Out upon
 
 KELVIN EVICTS VOTERS 259 
 
 his vast stretches of Long Island waste, spots 
 hitherto dreary beyond imagination, through the 
 spring and the long summer months he wrought a 
 vast miracle ; for as if from the very soil there now 
 sprang up a long succession of residence blocks, each 
 surrounded with its cement sidewalk, each contain 
 ing neat little cement houses molded after the Edi 
 son idea, and each house set in a generous plot of 
 ground. Water, light, sewerage, parks, schools, all 
 were provided, as if by magic, and the whole was 
 made easily accessible by the new and wonderful 
 transportation system that Rollins had inaugurated 
 at the same time. As yet, however, except for the 
 vast army of men employed in finishing the work, 
 there were no inhabitants, and the peculiar feature 
 was that the accidental thousands of prospective 
 purchasers and renters of homes could find no real- 
 estate office in all the interminable miles of the 
 attractive new chain of cities. 
 
 As soon as the work had begun to assume form its 
 magnitude could not escape the newspapers. Their 
 first two questions were : " What is this ? " and 
 " Who is doing it? " To both of these queries Kel 
 vin s publicity bureau had a ready answer: light 
 and air and cleanliness and life for the workingman, 
 at a cheaper price than he paid for darkness and 
 poisoned atmosphere and dirt and death. It was a 
 wonderful story. It went the length and the
 
 26o THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 breadth of the land, and it lasted, as flaming fea 
 ture material, all summer and fall. Opposition pa 
 pers called it politics, but they could not call it cheap 
 politics. It was a project so vast that the very con 
 sideration of it made one gasp. Kelvin, appealed 
 to, curtly pointed out that it had been projected 
 long before his name had been mentioned for the 
 nomination, and that it was merely one of Henry 
 Breed s plans for the use of his enormous wealth in 
 ameliorating the condition of mankind; nor did he 
 deny that the undertaking was expected to pay a 
 legitimate rate of interest upon the outlay. He was 
 entirely practical, he stated, and the inference was 
 that he would make an entirely practical president; 
 also a working president, for he was busy right up 
 to the time of election. 
 
 As if arranged by Providence, a chance to display 
 his vigorous practicality came just a few days be 
 fore election. One Pellman, remembered as a once 
 forceful man on Wall Street, then as a " has-been," 
 had suddenly blossomed into the lime-light as the 
 real-estate sensation of New York. Working 
 quietly he had secured options upon tenement-house 
 districts, block after block in extent. Purchasing 
 for cash, he mortgaged and purchased again and 
 mortgaged and purchased again, until he had com 
 pleted the most gigantic series of deals in the history 
 of the city. Now he announced the formation of
 
 KELVIN EVICTS VOTERS 261 
 
 a monster terminal company which should take care 
 of all the freight and passenger transportation 
 entering New York, and the erection of huge struc 
 tures covering blocks in extent. Immediately fol 
 lowing this, notices of eviction were served upon 
 every miserable dweller in the congested tenement 
 districts that he had purchased, dispossess warrants 
 having been secured in various squires courts by 
 wholesale and in great secrecy. By the one act 
 thousands upon thousands of families were ren 
 dered homeless and every newspaper blazed with the 
 wholesale oppression. 
 
 Who then came to the rescue? Why, Kelvin! 
 Kelvin, the disburser of Breed s billions; Kelvin, 
 the annihilator of the Stock Exchange; Kelvin, the 
 breaker of trusts; Kelvin, the reducer of the price of 
 bread; Kelvin, the poor man s friend; Kelvin, the 
 candidate for president of the United States ! 
 
 And he came forward with a project truly Kel- 
 vinesque. These people who had nowhere to go, 
 he would take care of every one of them! He 
 would furnish them free transportation for them 
 selves and their goods and chattels. He would at 
 once install each homeless family in a separate little 
 home of its own, free of moving cost; and to avoid 
 any suffering that might be attendant upon the con 
 fusion, would stock each house with a week s pro 
 visions! Would a summer and fall of campaign
 
 262 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 speeches have beaten that? Even Pellman, that 
 wonderful wizard of financeering, admitted that it 
 would not. Already, for the cruel-hearted Pellman, 
 an endless army of bailiffs had begun to empty tene 
 ment-building after tenement-building, dumping 
 household goods ruthlessly upon the walks; and in 
 many places, particularly in narrow thoroughfares 
 seldom used for heavy traffic, the rubbish was piled 
 clear out into the middle of the street. No such 
 appalling evidence of the might of wealth, of the 
 power of the rich over the poor, of the ruthless 
 sacrifice of human pawns, had ever been seen in the 
 world. Countless thousands of dazed and helpless 
 families, thrust suddenly homeless into the streets, 
 attached themselves, in pitiful home-instinct, each 
 to a distressful little pile of battered and scratched 
 and splintered and ragged goods, and merely waited 
 in numbed misery. There had been a few fights at 
 first, a few blackened eyes and bloody noses and 
 broken heads, but for the most part these people, 
 aggressive enough individually, were overwhelmed 
 into massed numbness by the very magnitude of the 
 cataclysm. Where wan, thin-legged children had 
 sat on steps and leaned against basement railings 
 and cluttered on fire-escapes, were now only sight 
 less windows and littered doorways, while the 
 streets they mocked were such a chaos of human 
 misery as scarce Dore could have conceived. One
 
 KELVIN EVICTS VOTERS 263 
 
 block alone of this would have been enough to sicken 
 the soul of any altruist, but when this block was 
 multiplied by hundreds, such an aggregate of human 
 woe was never realized short of a Pompeiian hor 
 ror or an Atlantian tragedy. Men and women and 
 children, the aged and the lame and the sick, they 
 were like dumb, driven cattle under the awful 
 power of this devastation, and the composite sound 
 of all their voices was a moan. 
 
 This tremendous dislodgment began with the 
 early dawn. Nearing noon, down the first of these 
 narrow, misery-clogged streets there came, with 
 military precision, a strange procession of moving- 
 vans, and, arrived at the first breastworks of house 
 hold effects, the leader of that procession announced 
 briefly, to those nearest him, the terms of Kelvin s 
 offer. 
 
 "Would they go?" 
 
 A cheer answered that question, a cheer of 
 mighty relief, as of famished men in sight of water, 
 as of lost souls that had found the gates of para 
 dise; a cheer that was caught up around unseen 
 corners and on far-off streets, that traveled like a 
 tidal wave and redoubled upon itself again and 
 again, that spread in running circles like a mighty 
 splash in a pond, until it had covered all that broad 
 area of desolation and turned its helpless misery 
 into hysterical rejoicing.
 
 264 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 There had been no great rioting in the eviction 
 itself, but now it took solid cordons of police to 
 quell the rioting of eagerness that broke forth, the 
 desire that could not wait. Then began the most 
 amazing hegira in the history of civilization. 
 Numbered cards were provided in packs, and the 
 same number was tagged upon all the household 
 goods of a family and upon all its members and 
 upon the van which hauled it. Out into the new ce 
 ment cities they were carried, into fresh air and 
 clean surroundings and a new life, away from 
 squalor and disease and degradation; and, though 
 dazed by the change, they were different people, 
 and better, for it. So Long Island, for ages useless, 
 was populated. Through the day and the night 
 and the day again and the night, for more than two 
 weeks, this tremendous exodus went on, and an in 
 ternational war, the assassination of a king, the de 
 struction, by flood or fire or earthquake or eruption, 
 of a state, would have had to give way in news 
 value to this tremendous occurrence. Only Patsy 
 McCalken, bereft of his leadership because there 
 was no one to lead, put his stubby finger upon the 
 facts. 
 
 " He said he d take it away from me, and he done 
 it, damn him!" exclaimed Mr. McCalken, half in 
 dignantly and half admiringly, his red face puffing 
 redder, and curious little wrinkles forming upon
 
 KELVIN EVICTS VOTERS 265 
 
 both sides of the mole on his nose. " Them three 
 districts would V beat Kelvin in this election, and 
 now there won t be enough voters left in the whole 
 abbatoir to wedge a come-on in a vestibule. An the 
 whole game s a frame-up. Breed s money s back 
 of Kelvin, and it s Breed s money that s back of 
 Pellman; and Breed gets his all out again by sellin 
 all this property Pellman bought to the railroads. 
 It not only don t cost a cent to make all this election 
 grandstand play from here to Frisco, but it makes 
 money! Think o that, will you! If Kelvin 
 frames up this deal he s a bigger man than Dick 
 Croker ; sure he is ! " 
 
 Nobody, however, paid any attention to Patsy 
 McCalken. 
 
 Election night found Henry Breed, as eager in 
 his interest as any child could have been, in New 
 York for the first time in years ; and with him came 
 Lillian, Mrs. Rensselaer, Doctor Zelphan, and the 
 usual servants. Two splendid suites on Kelvin s 
 floor at the Esplanade were secured, and the com 
 mon meeting-point for all of them that night was a 
 magnificent drawing-room upon the corner over 
 looking the entrance to the park, and also over 
 looking a moving-picture bulletin which an enter 
 prising newspaper had established there. Breed, 
 apparently made young again by his excitement, 
 and dressed with unusual care at the dictation of his
 
 266 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 granddaughter, surveyed Kelvin and Rollins in turn 
 with paternal delight; but he studied both men 
 shrewdly and ended by putting his hand on Kelvin s 
 shoulder. 
 
 " My boy, you are made of the right stuff," he 
 announced in his shrill voice. " Here s the man," 
 and he turned to the others, " fitted to sustain a 
 world s crisis. There is no nervousness here, no 
 energy wasted in worry, no flinching, face straight 
 ahead. Fine boy, this Kelvin." 
 
 " Throw your chest out, Phillip," drawled Her 
 bert Rensselaer ; " a connoisseur in fine boys is 
 addressing you." 
 
 " I think he s about right myself," returned 
 Phillip, smiling, until, happening to glance at Rol 
 lins, he found his co-candidate regarding him with a 
 thoughtful frown. 
 
 There had come some slight coolness between the 
 two men during the closing days of the campaign, 
 not enough to amount to an estrangement, but 
 enough to render them unusually studious of each 
 other. They had never been thoroughly en rapport, 
 and now there came a sudden set to Rollins shoul 
 ders and a squaring of his jaw and a narrowing 
 of his eyes that boded ill for the harmony of their 
 future relations. Kelvin caught the look and its 
 significance. Could it be possible, he wondered, 
 that Rollins had been rendered jealous by this
 
 KELVIN EVICTS VOTERS 267 
 
 senile praise of Breed s? He dismissed that 
 thought as absurd. 
 
 "Really," put in Mrs. Rensselaer, "we are all 
 intensely interested, and even absorbed, in your 
 campaign, Mr. Kelvin. We think it has been very 
 cleverly conducted indeed." 
 
 Doctor Zelphan, sitting quietly over in the corner 
 of the big drawing-room, made a sound suspiciously 
 like a snort of hilarious derision, which only Lillian, 
 with an amused glance, caught and interpreted. 
 
 " For myself, for Mr. Rollins, and also for Mr. 
 Breed, I thank you," said Kelvin to Mrs. Rens 
 selaer, who he knew hated him ; " but we all have to 
 remember that, while the campaign is over, our 
 election is not yet assured, by any means. Mr. 
 Rollins and Mr. Breed and myself, as monopolists 
 and malefactors and capitalists of great wealth and a 
 few other reprehensible things, have come in for 
 some hard scorings in the past few days, and just 
 how much effect that is going to have on the atti 
 tude of the public it is hard to tell." 
 
 " Huh ! It isn t worth considering," said Breed, 
 snapping his lean, long fingers. " Elections are 
 not won on public sentiment alone. Politics is too 
 thoroughly organized for that. Get the leaders 
 who own the little leaders, who, in turn, own the 
 minor workers, clear down to the ward thugs, and 
 you have the country."
 
 268 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " I can not agree with you," broke in Rollins with 
 an amount of vigor which made them all suddenly 
 turn to him, displaying a trifle more than the mere 
 polite and courteous interest they had been paying 
 to one another. " In ordinary times, where noth 
 ing is at stake, that might be true," he went on, 
 " but with a vital issue to the fore, the best political 
 machinery in the world must go to pieces. The 
 man who disregards the tremendous, resistless force 
 of public sentiment reckons without the mighty 
 power which has made every important change 
 upon the maps since history began." 
 
 " Mercy ! " cried Lillian. " How vitally serious 
 we are becoming ! I should think it would be great 
 fun to change the maps of the world, but in the 
 meantime there are nearer and dearer things to me ; 
 as, for instance, when and where are we to have 
 dinner? " 
 
 " Right in this apartment, I think, if Mr. Breed 
 will allow it," said Kelvin with a laugh as he pushed 
 a button. " At least I ordered it to be served here. 
 Bulletins will be coming in before we are even 
 seated, and while the early ones do not amount to 
 much, I am sure we shall all be interested in them. 
 By having the table in this room we can look out at 
 the big bulletin across the street, and no formality 
 is to prevent any of us from rushing out upon our 
 balcony to watch the cheering if there is any un-
 
 KELVIN EVICTS VOTERS 269 
 
 usual excitement. In the meantime, suppose we 
 scatter and make ready for dinner as quickly as we 
 can. I ordered it rather early. It should be about 
 ready to serve, and the butler would probably be 
 glad to have this room." 
 
 Breed walked out into the hall with Kelvin. " I 
 will be glad when the night is over so I can go back 
 to Forest Lakes," he confided to Phillip. " I can 
 not get out of my mind the fact of all that money 
 there alone. It it calls to me, Phillip ! " 
 
 " Nonsense," replied Kelvin, glancing at him 
 curiously. His conferences with Breed during the 
 closing months of the campaign had been very few 
 and very brief, but, even so, he had noticed a 
 strange development that the old man was prone 
 to pass from normality to abnormality and back 
 again with not only surprising but discomforting 
 swiftness; and now he saw in the old man s eyes 
 the dawning of that erratic expression which he had 
 come to dread, largely because it annoyed him, be 
 cause it interfered with the cool planning and the 
 ready understanding that he wished from this man 
 in his tremendous schemes. " No one knows about 
 it," Kelvin assured him ; " and an army could not 
 force the vaults." 
 
 " It isn t that," Breed half whispered. " It it 
 calls to me, I say. I hear it, in tongues of silver 
 and of gold and in soft, silken rustlings, when I try
 
 270 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 to sleep away from home. As for safety, it s safe 
 enough, but it it calls me ! Not for protection, 
 you know, but for company; just company. Not 
 that it s afraid. It knows that I have guarded it 
 well. I have doubled my force of watchmen 
 around there, did you know? I have almost a 
 regiment; ignorant fellows that I have brought up 
 from the mountains, men who know nothing but 
 how to handle a gun. I have a solid line of them all 
 around the house and all around the walls and all 
 around the drives, with instructions to shoot the 
 first man that comes near." His voice sank to a 
 whisper. " They have shot two in the past month. 
 They dragged them away and buried them at 
 night." Kelvin turned to Breed, shocked and hor 
 ror-stricken. The old man s eyes were blazing, 
 and his hand, as he laid it upon Phillip s arm, was 
 trembling, not with fright but with some more lust 
 ful passion. " Mine is the appointed hand," he 
 went on. " Mine is the appointed hand. From the 
 just wrath of the Most High there is no escape." 
 
 " No, I presume not," admitted Kelvin with calm 
 ness at least in his voice, as he sought quickly for 
 some means to turn the channel of the old man s 
 thought. He was not sure whether Breed s guards 
 had actually killed two trespassers, but at this junc 
 ture he did not much care, the shock once past. In 
 spite of his outward self-possession he was at a high
 
 KELVIN EVICTS VOTERS 271 
 
 tension over the outcome of the evening, and was 
 impatient to be by himself for a few moments. 
 " There is not so much to guard as there used to 
 be," he suggested. 
 
 The instant change in Breed s countenance as 
 sured Kelvin that he had struck the right note. 
 
 " No," admitted Breed, shaking his head, " that s 
 true." He seemed quite cast down about it 
 for a moment, then suddenly he chuckled shrilly. 
 " But we ll get it all back, Phillip. It s only an in 
 vestment, and when you become president and we 
 get a Senate and Congress that we can handle, my 
 vault will receive every cash dollar in the United 
 States. Then we ll see what we shall see," and he 
 bobbed his old bald head like a toy mandarin. 
 
 " We shall see what we shall see," repeated Kel 
 vin enigmatically, and turned abruptly toward his 
 suite. 
 
 Lillian sweeping down the hall after them, called 
 to Phillip. He waited at his door for her, and 
 Henry Breed, looking at them fondly for a moment, 
 turned back into his own reception-room. 
 
 " I ve a crow to pick with you," declared Lillian, 
 drawing up closely to Phillip and putting her hand 
 upon his forearm. 
 
 " And what is it ? " he asked, frowning slightly 
 and making no attempt to conceal it. 
 
 " Now don t be cross," she rallied him playfully.
 
 272 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " You haven t been down to see me in a month, and 
 you never have written me a single letter." 
 
 " I never put myself on paper," returned Phillip. 
 
 " You re a most unsatisfactory lover," she 
 charged, shrugging her shoulders. 
 
 Blagg, so gaunt and emaciated that his previous 
 gauntness and emaciation seemed, by contrasted 
 recollection, like plumpness, passed them with a look 
 of concentrated fury; his eyes, sunken deep in their 
 cavities, looked like wells of blackness. Lillian 
 smiled at his malevolence, but Kelvin shook his 
 head. 
 
 " I don t like that fellow," he observed. " He s 
 a dangerous man to have around. He s a fool and 
 a fanatic, and there is no telling where and when 
 he will break loose." 
 
 " I don t know," Lillian mused. " I believe that 
 all you say about him is true, but I rather like to 
 play with fire, don t you ? " 
 
 "No," replied Kelvin shortly; "not unless there 
 is a definite end to gain by doing so." 
 
 It was Mrs. Rensselaer who rescued Phillip. 
 She could not be comfortable if Lillian was out of 
 her sight for more than a few minutes, especially 
 when Kelvin was in the neighborhood, for the 
 project to have her nephew marry the richest girl 
 in the world never passed from the mind of that 
 indefatigable woman.
 
 CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 THE MISSING DESK DAGGER REAPPEARS IN A ROLE 
 OF LURID MELODRAMA 
 
 WHEN the company sat down to dinner, 
 Kelvin found at his plate the early bul 
 letins which he had directed to be left 
 there. They were returns from scattered precincts 
 and meant nothing as to the general results, 
 but they were all highly favorable to the elec 
 tion of Kelvin and Rollins, and had the effect 
 of starting the dinner with much lightness of 
 spirit. So it was with the bulletins which came for 
 the next hour or so. Blagg himself, swathed in 
 impenetrable gloom, brought them from the adjoin 
 ing room, into which, for the occasion, private wires 
 had been run for him and an assistant, and through 
 all that long and apparently interminable succession 
 of favorable despatches during which Breed, 
 more fatigued than he had thought, went to bed 
 he never lifted his eyes from the floor. At ten 
 o clock, however, unfavorable bulletins began to 
 come in, one after the other, and Blagg, for the 
 first time, began to raise his eyes from the floor, to 
 square back his shoulders, to tilt his pointed chin. 
 
 273
 
 274 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 They were like drafts of strong wine to him, these 
 messages, and as their importance and significance 
 increased, his spirits rose. Senator Sawyer, wor 
 ried beyond measure by the unexpected develop 
 ment, came bustling into the room. 
 
 " I don t understand it," he declared. " You ve 
 had against you in this campaign three elements; 
 first, the ordinary opposing politics; second, the 
 corporations; third, class hatred. On the mere 
 matter of partisan politics we win by superior or 
 ganization. Any effect the corporations may have 
 had against you has been more than offset by the 
 work you ve done against them. Class hatred 
 should have been amply overcome by the fact that 
 you have arrayed yourself against your own class, 
 and that all your operations have been in favor of 
 the masses. There is something else behind all this. 
 These adverse reports are from large cities exclu 
 sively, and from two parts, congested city districts 
 and outlying districts given over to extremely 
 cheap workingmen s homes. It would look as if 
 the labor vote had suddenly switched." 
 
 Lillian, watching Blagg, saw his face light with 
 a malignant smile. 
 
 " I can not understand how the labor vote should 
 have been estranged," commented Kelvin slowly; 
 " but, after all, what does it matter? The thing in 
 which I am chiefly interested just now is not cause
 
 THE MISSING DESK DAGGER 275 
 
 but result. We can analyze the situation after 
 ward." 
 
 Blagg, still smiling, left the room, returning a 
 moment later with still other depressing news. It 
 was a restless hour that followed. The table had 
 been cleared, only wine and cigars and cigarettes 
 remaining, and Breed s company alternated nerv 
 ously between the balcony and the table, sitting out 
 side at times to watch the big illuminated screer. 
 across the street, and drifting in by twos and threes 
 to resume their places at the table, to talk and sip 
 wine and receive Blagg s messages, and drift again 
 to the balcony. The most of them were inside 
 when, at the end of an hour of almost continued 
 bad news, Blagg brought in a particularly unfavor 
 able telegram, one purporting to come from the 
 national committee and conceding the possible 
 defeat of Kelvin by a narrow margin. 
 
 " I m bound to confess that it looks bad," Kelvin 
 was forced to admit; "but I m like you, Senator; 
 I can t understand it. I don t see what element 
 could have worked against me." 
 
 " I can tell you," suddenly broke in the voice of 
 Blagg, a voice that was shrill in its long-suppressed 
 triumph. " I did it. I am at the head of an organ 
 ization of a quarter of a million men each one 
 sworn with his life against the principles you rep 
 resent. I sent them out the word immediately after
 
 276 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 your nomination, and once a week since, to vote 
 against you and to work against you tooth and nail, 
 and they have done it. You owe your defeat to 
 me," and he beat both hands upon his chest in his 
 madness of exultation. 
 
 Kelvin eyed him coldly. " You were not asked 
 for any comments or explanations, Mr. Blagg," he 
 observed. " For the remainder of the evening you 
 will kindly, and without unnecessary conversation, 
 attend to the duties which permit you to enter this 
 room." 
 
 Blagg caught his breath sharply and trembled. 
 His hands clenched convulsively, but suddenly he 
 wheeled and strode from the room. 
 
 " The man is telling the truth," said Rollins. 
 " I ve heard him talk of this organization before, 
 but I thought it only the boastings of his kind. I 
 am compelled to believe now that his organization 
 actually exists, in the numbers he claims, and that 
 it is effective." 
 
 " If it is," declared Kelvin, " I shall make it my 
 business to drag that organization out by the 
 roots ! " 
 
 A cheer, the first hearty one in a half-hour, at 
 tracted them to the balcony. The bulletin across 
 the street was displaying a highly favorable mes 
 sage, which proved to be the turning of the tide. 
 Lillian went into Blagg s room to telephone for
 
 THE MISSING DESK DAGGER 277 
 
 Elsie White. Blagg was in a chair in the corner 
 with his handkerchief to his mouth, and there were 
 red stains upon it. He rose as Lillian entered. 
 
 " You may go get that cigar, now," he said to 
 his assistant, who was at the key. " What did I tell 
 you ? " he demanded, turning to Lillian as soon as 
 the operator had gone. " Who has shown the 
 greater power, Kelvin or myself? His star is on 
 the wane and mine in the ascendancy ! " he almost 
 shrieked. " This is his last chance. He is through, 
 and it is I who have defeated him. It is only the 
 start of the things I am destined to do, and with 
 your help I can conquer worlds. Lillian, come with 
 me ! " He caught her by the shoulder, and, turning 
 to look him clearly in the eyes, she suffered his hand 
 to remain there. " You know where there is a bil 
 lion and a half dollars in cash! With this money we 
 can overturn the entire rotten social and financial 
 and political system of this country, and sway the 
 mightiest empire in the world to our will. I ve 
 talked of this phase first, because you have not let 
 me talk of love; but now I must speak of it, Lillian! 
 I am dying for the love of you ! You have nearly 
 killed me, but, God help me, I ll take you yet! 
 Come ; right now while you have a chance, and we ll 
 go to Forest Lakes immediately to-night ! I ve a 
 thousand men where I can mass them in an hour. 
 Come ! Kelvin will cast you off like a broken toy."
 
 278 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Slowly, holding his eyes with her own, Lillian s 
 hand crept up to her shoulder. He thought, as he 
 saw it slipping upward, that she had intended to 
 rest her palm upon his own hand, but instead she 
 placed the point of a pin upon one of his gaunt 
 knuckles and twirled it ! Out of all the devilment 
 that lay in her she had selected this trifling action 
 as being the most contemptuous within her inven 
 tion, and, laughing in his face, she swept from the 
 room and sent a page for Elsie. She rejoined the 
 others upon the balcony, laughing from sheer light- 
 heartedness, and nestled down in a chair close by 
 Phillip, who sat upon the rail. In the dimness she 
 even rested her forearm across his knee and shared 
 with the others their increasing pleasure in the re 
 turns from outlying country districts, where the 
 vote had been almost to a man for Kelvin and Rol 
 lins. Occasionally bulletins were brought to them 
 and read aloud to them from the open window, but 
 Blagg no longer appeared, the messages now being 
 brought by his assistant. Slowly the lost ground 
 was regained. The returns from the districts where 
 Blagg s influence had been paramount, if he had told 
 the truth, were apparently all in, and from midnight 
 it was but a mere matter of the slow rolling up of 
 a majority. By one o clock the election of Kelvin 
 and Rollins was assured beyond all possibility of a 
 doubt, and telegrams of congratulation began to
 
 THE MISSING DESK DAGGER 279 
 
 pour in; and, tired but exultant, the watchers came 
 in from the balcony. Rollins, as he entered the 
 room, turned and shook hands with Kelvin. 
 
 " Well, we ve won," said he. " It seems that 
 Mr. Blagg s organization of patriots was not so 
 powerful after all." 
 
 " Blagg ! " exclaimed Senator Sawyer, and 
 laughed heartily. "Wasn t that a curious thing? 
 I shall always remember your man Blagg." 
 
 " Yes, you shall remember Blagg, all of you ! " 
 shrieked a voice, and, turning, they saw the tall, 
 thin form of the wireless operator standing in the 
 doorway. Before any one could divine his intention 
 he had sprung at Phillip. 
 
 Something glittered in the light as he raised his 
 arm, and flashed as he brought it down; and Kelvin 
 dropped to the floor. Blagg sprang for the door to 
 the hall, but met Sam coming in, and Sam, seeing 
 Phillip lying upon the floor, required no explanation. 
 In an instant, for the second time in their two lives, 
 his hands were about Blagg s throat, and he bore 
 him to the floor, where, snarling and moaning like a 
 wild beast tearing at its live quarry, he began that 
 work of barbarity for which his blood was always 
 lustful. Horror-stricken, Sawyer and Rensselaer 
 and Zelphan and the attending butler rushed to drag 
 Sam away from his victim, while Rollins turned his 
 attention to Phillip. It had all happened in an in-
 
 280 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 stant the stabbing of Phillip, Sam s assault upon 
 Blagg, and the piling of the other men upon Sain 
 and in that instant Elsie White had shrieked 
 and thrown herself upon her knees beside Phillip s 
 prostrate form. 
 
 " Phillip ! " she cried in anguish, and in that cry 
 the secret of her heart was made known; all the 
 pent-up love that she had felt for him and had 
 hidden revealed itself in that wailing call upon his 
 name. 
 
 Lillian Breed, her face inflamed with sudden pas 
 sion, leaned over the girl, and, grasping her by the 
 shoulders, shook her violently and hissed a word in 
 her ear that made Elsie, lost to her surroundings as 
 she was, recoil and crimson and spring to her feet. 
 Lillian followed her up in a storm of passion and 
 upbraided her with foul insinuations, discharged 
 her, and called upon a page to have the girl thrown 
 bodily into the street. 
 
 In the meantime Phillip had opened his eyes, and 
 a moment later raised himself to his elbow, feeling 
 at his heart. Rollins helped him to a sitting posi 
 tion, just in the midst of the pandemonium, when 
 Sam was being torn away from Blagg and Lillian 
 was wreaking her fury upon Elsie. 
 
 " Are you badly hurt ? " asked Rollins. 
 
 " No, I think not," replied Phillip, dazed. " I 
 think I was only stunned by the force of the blow.
 
 THE MISSING DESK DAGGER 281 
 
 I doubt if I even have a flesh wound/ and taking 
 Rollins hand he rose to his feet and sat in a chair. 
 
 It was in that moment that Rollins saw Lillian 
 raise her hand to strike Elsie, and he sprang in be 
 tween them, putting a protecting arm around Elsie s 
 shoulder. 
 
 Lillian laughed shrilly. " It seems that my clever 
 little strumpet has aroused the gallantry of more 
 than one of my friends," she charged. 
 
 " No," returned Rollins calmly, " I only love her, 
 and I m going to call a cab and send her over to my 
 mother at the Hotel Spuyten." 
 
 The disturbance rose anew in the group about 
 the door. Rensselaer and Doctor Zelphan had Sam 
 on the floor on his back, struggling and sobbing 
 and begging to be let go that he might " drink 
 Blagg s blood." Senator Sawyer and the attending 
 butler had raised Blagg to his feet and stood with 
 him near the door. He was ashen white and was 
 quivering all over. His hands were at his throat, 
 and he was gasping for breath. Thin little streams 
 of blood were running down the corners of his 
 mouth. 
 
 " Send for a policeman," the butler ordered the 
 bewildered page. 
 
 " No," interposed Kelvin. " Don t do that. Let 
 the man go. It is not good policy to have this 
 known."
 
 282 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Sawyer, panting for breath, nodded his head vig 
 orously. " You are quite right, Mr. Kelvin," said 
 he, and stepped away from Blagg s side. 
 
 " You are letting me go at your own peril, 
 warned Blagg, gasping out the words with a diffi 
 culty that contorted his face. But he had abated 
 no particle of his rage. 
 
 "If you stay it will be at yours," returned Phillip 
 and got upon his feet. 
 
 As he did so something heavy and metallic and 
 bright dropped to the floor. Blagg took a step for 
 ward, stopped, laughed bitterly and tottered out 
 into the hall. 
 
 Kelvin stooped and picked up the object that had 
 fallen. It was the heavy paper-weight dagger that 
 Blagg had stolen from Phillip s desk a year before, 
 and its point had now clung in Kelvin s clothing 
 until this movement. Phillip held it up by its tip. 
 
 " That s twice this thing has threatened me," said 
 he, " and each time it has failed. I think I shall 
 keep it as my emblem and my talisman." 
 
 An unusual commotion arose in the street, and 
 glancing out the window, they saw flashed upon 
 the bulletin the announcement that both Kelvin and 
 Rollins were in the rooms exactly opposite the 
 screen. There were loud cheers and calls for Kel 
 vin. He looked inquiringly at Senator Sawyer. 
 
 " It s none of my doing," declared the senator,
 
 THE MISSING DESK DAGGER 283 
 
 " but there was no keeping it from them all night. 
 I only wonder they didn t find you before. You d 
 better show yourself and say a few words, I guess." 
 
 Kelvin advanced hesitatingly to the window and 
 held out his hand for Rollins to come with him. 
 Before he emerged upon the balcony, he turned and 
 once more held up the dagger. He noticed as he did 
 so, however, that it stood in the shape of a cross, 
 and he immediately reversed it, with the glittering 
 point in the air. 
 
 " In this sign I conquer, " he laughingly quoted, 
 and then he went out upon the balcony to exhibit 
 himself as president-elect of the United States.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 PRESIDENT KELVIN ASSURES HERBERT RENSSELAER 
 THAT HE HAS NO CLAIM ON LILLIAN 
 
 SENATOR Sawyer, after having awaited his 
 turn for nearly an hour in the outer offices, 
 came red- faced with anger into the presence 
 of President Kelvin. 
 
 " By George, it s true ! " he spluttered, looking 
 about him. " At first I thought it a newspaper joke, 
 but it s true ! " 
 
 " What is this amazing truth ? " asked Kelvin 
 quietly. 
 
 " Why, that you are polluting the White House 
 with all the pomp and trappings of actual royalty! " 
 
 The portly senator, who had thriven upon blatant 
 democracy all his life, who declaimed it from public 
 platforms and flaunted it in public print at every 
 opportunity, who wore ready-made clothing back 
 home but maintained a most aristocratic establish 
 ment in Washington, pursed up his lips and glared 
 about him in fine indignation. A low platform had 
 been erected in the end of this apartment, and upon 
 it stood a richly carved, flat-top mahogany desk, 
 
 284
 
 NO CLAIM ON LILLIAN 285 
 
 while behind this sat Kelvin in an enormous high- 
 backed chair, strikingly suggestive of a throne. On 
 one side of him stood Sam, and on the other a 
 huge, ebony black negro exactly matching Sam ex 
 cept for that livid scar upon his ugly left cheek. 
 Both of them were clad in blue-and-gold liveries 
 which matched the decorations, the rich tapestry, 
 and the heavy rug, and of which they were conspic 
 uously proud. Besides Phillip s there was not an 
 other chair in the apartment, it being the obvious 
 intent that visitors should stand ! This, for the 
 senator, was the last straw. 
 
 " I do not understand what you mean by it," Mr. 
 Sawyer went on, contracting his bushy white eye 
 brows. " The entire press of the country is aflame 
 with it. When I picked up my paper in Chicago 
 yesterday morning, and read of the alterations you 
 had made, I was astounded. I took the first train 
 out and came straight here." 
 
 " Very prompt and decisive in you, I am sure, * 
 returned Kelvin with open sarcasm. 
 
 " Prompt and decisive action is necessary to save 
 the party," the senator hotly retorted ; " and the 
 country," he added as an after-thought. " While 
 you were installing yourself in all this extravagant 
 claptrap, I saw, as I went to the train in Chicago, 
 that monster parade of the unemployed. This morn 
 ing I read of the brutal and unprovoked police at-
 
 286 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 tack upon them, of the riot which followed, of the 
 calling out of the state troops, of the killing of a 
 score of men, and of your edict late last night plac 
 ing the city under martial law. That is a long score 
 added to your account, Kelvin. To the twenty killed 
 in Chicago add the seventeen killed in Philadelphia, 
 the nine in Cincinnati, and the six in St. Louis, and 
 you have more than I would care to carry on my 
 conscience." 
 
 " What did you come to see me about, Senator ? " 
 demanded Kelvin coldly. " You will please make 
 your errand known as directly and as briefly as pos 
 sible. There are many others waiting." 
 
 " I came to protest against your entire adminis 
 tration ! " blazed Sawyer, fanning himself into an 
 excellently dramatic fury. " Before your nomina 
 tion, to gain the influence of certain powerful cor 
 porations, you had Vice-President Rollins, as 
 manager of the united railroad system of the 
 United States, give them valuable rebate con 
 cessions. Since your election you have, through 
 Pellman, who succeeded Rollins as czar of the rail 
 roads, stopped every concession, and forced a per 
 fect riot of restrictive legislation. By that means 
 you have scattered into small units every influential 
 combination in the country, with the result that the 
 unthinking people hailed you as the King of Trust- 
 Killers. They are now beginning to see their folly
 
 NO CLAIM ON LILLIAN 287 
 
 and yours. With your railroad policy, legisla 
 tive meddling, and artificially produced money 
 stringency, you have stopped mills and factories by 
 the hundred, and have disrupted the entire industrial 
 system of the country." 
 
 " Precisely what was needed," was the surprising 
 reply. " Next will come the readjustment. We 
 shall return to the era of smaller competitive con 
 cerns and a far better distribution of wealth." 
 
 " I do not believe it," snapped the senator. " To 
 me such conditions would look like going backward. 
 Left to itself, the trust and combine and monopoly 
 situation would work out its own salvation, for 
 these aggregations of units were in the line of logical 
 commercial progress ; but while we stand here argu 
 ing this purely abstract question, there are hundreds 
 of thousands of workmen out of employment, and 
 the number of this vast, hungry army is increasing 
 every day at an appalling rate. While you sit here 
 in oriental splendor, backed by Henry Breed s bil 
 lions and worth money enough in your own name 
 to buy you food and clothing and fuel and a roof 
 for your head for a thousand years if you should 
 live that long a hundred thousand men are on the 
 verge of starvation. They are desperate men, and 
 some relief must be offered them at once. What 
 are you going to do about it ? " 
 
 " Go right on with my program," announced
 
 288 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Kelvin calmly, picking up from his desk a heavy 
 paper-knife made in the shape of a dagger and toy 
 ing with it. 
 
 " You will not go right on with it ! " declared the 
 senator, striking his closed fist upon a corner of Kel 
 vin s desk. Upon his rotund cheeks a fine network 
 of veins sprang suddenly red. " You re going to 
 have a revolt on your hands in both the Senate and 
 House." 
 
 " And I suppose that you will lead the revolt in 
 the Senate," suggested Kelvin quietly. 
 
 "If need be, sir!" thundered the senator. "I 
 know at what you are hinting that my self-inter 
 est will stand in the way; but I hope, sir, I am 
 sufficiently patriotic that when my country calls I 
 shall answer her cry of distress." 
 
 " Exactly," rejoined Phillip dryly. " I would ex 
 pect nothing else from a gentleman of your well- 
 known patriotism. I can imagine you responding, 
 in clarion tones, to your country s cry of distress, 
 and being echoed by columns upon columns of ex 
 cellent publicity. In the meantime you owe consid 
 erable personal debts of which I could almost give 
 you an accurate scale; you are hard pressed at this 
 moment for money; you have a stiff mortgage on 
 your house in Washington and an equally heavy 
 one on your place out West, both of which mort 
 gages have eventually found their way into the
 
 NO CLAIM ON LILLIAN 289 
 
 hands of Mr. Breed, which, perhaps, you did not 
 know." 
 
 Senator Sawyer was shocked into highly uncom 
 fortable silence. 
 
 " You, at least, are not going to revolt," went on 
 Phillip, " and I might say, in passing, that what 
 ever feeble attempt at insubordination manifests 
 itself, in either house, will be promptly and effect 
 ively extinguished. In other words, Senator, if you 
 came here representing any clique or combination of 
 law-peddlers, you may go back and tell them that I 
 intend to have my way, first, last, and all the time ! 
 I know precisely what I am doing, and I shall not 
 permit any interference. Did you come upon any 
 other errand? " 
 
 The senator s red-faced rage had given way to 
 pale-faced apprehension. 
 
 " About those mortgages," he said, shifting un 
 easily. " I don t suppose that there will be any 
 present trouble about them." 
 
 " I couldn t say, I m sure," returned Kelvin. 
 " You ll have to see the head of Mr. Breed s real- 
 estate department about that." 
 
 The senator, much crest-fallen and quite a 
 different man from the one who had come in to give 
 Kelvin a piece of his mind, was about to retire when 
 Phillip stopped him. 
 
 " By the way, Senator," he offered, " if you
 
 290 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 should need any ready cash my private purse is open 
 to you to the extent of, say, a thousand." 
 
 The senator \vheeled instantly. Upon his shoul 
 ders there always pressed a burden of urgent small 
 bills that worried him far more than the heavy 
 mortgages which he was unable to cancel. They 
 were, in fact, unbearable, and he was habitually in 
 the position of being almost willing to barter away 
 his soul to be delivered from under them. 
 
 "If you can accommodate me with a trifling tem 
 porary loan of a thousand for sixty days, say 
 I would appreciate it very much," he said, smiling 
 ingratiatingly. 
 
 " No trouble at all," said Phillip pleasantly, and 
 immediately began writing out a check. 
 
 The senator was followed by a procession of 
 office-seekers and favor-hunters of whom Kelvin 
 disposed briefly, and then came Rollins. The vice- 
 president, in his year of office, had undergone as 
 striking a change as the president. Upon Kelvin s 
 clean-cut features there sat a new sternness, born of 
 a determination which never faltered by day or by 
 night. With Rollins the change was one of gravity 
 rather than of sternness, and much recent worry 
 had left him pale. 
 
 " Kelvin, we have been wrong from the first," he 
 confessed, after brief greetings. " You are carry 
 ing out many of the alleged reforms over which we
 
 NO CLAIM ON LILLIAN 291 
 
 talked, but they are not reforms. The ultimate aim 
 was right, but the means are wrong. They are too 
 violent, too drastic, and they have only succeeded 
 in disturbing the economic system to an appalling 
 extent." 
 
 " Not to any greater extent than I had calcu 
 lated," returned Kelvin. He appeared much more 
 anxious, by his tone, to convince Rollins than he 
 had been to appease Senator Sawyer. " This con 
 fusion must prevail in the interim between the pass 
 ing away of the old order of things and the institu 
 tion of the new. You will see that the period of 
 suffering will be but a brief one, and that we shall 
 emerge from the entire revolution for it amounts 
 to nothing less upon a sounder basis than any 
 commonwealth in the history of the world, with a 
 larger ultimate percentage of happiness than here 
 tofore enjoyed by any state." 
 
 Rollins shook his head. " You are mistaken," 
 said he earnestly. " No peaceable economic read 
 justment is possible when any large number of the 
 members of the body politic have reached the stage 
 of starving desperation." 
 
 " You don t see very far, Rollins," replied Kel 
 vin patiently. " You are basing all your calculations 
 for new emergencies upon old principles. You are 
 trying to find compound interest by the formula for 
 cube root. Has it ever occurred to you that the solu-
 
 292 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 tion of all our economic difficulties might be found 
 in an entirely new system of government? " 
 
 Rollins looked at him steadily while a slow flush 
 mounted to his forehead. " Kelvin," said he, very 
 gravely, " this is not the first time I have heard you 
 hint at such things. One of my ancestors assisted 
 in the drafting of the constitution of the United 
 States, and signed it. Several of them fought to 
 uphold it. It is the most perfect in conception, the 1 
 broadest in humanitarianism, the most complete in 
 wisdom, of any human document upon which a state 
 was ever founded. If it is tampered with in any 
 way, or if any attempt is made to supplant it, I warn 
 you that the sons of the men who framed it and 
 who died for it will rise up to defend it in a 
 righteous wrath second only to the rage of the Al 
 mighty; and by the eternal God I will be foremost 
 among their number ! " 
 
 There was no bombast about his statement. He 
 had scarcely raised the pitch of his voice, and yet 
 there was in his tone such deadly earnestness that 
 Kelvin, accustomed to treating his advisers and his 
 dissenters alike with half -concealed contempt, was 
 bound to pay him serious attention. 
 
 You are far too logical a man, Rollins, to speak 
 in definite judgment upon a problem until you know 
 its full conditions," he protested. " I do contem 
 plate a change, and a radical one, in our type of
 
 NO CLAIM ON LILLIAN 293 
 
 government. That change can only be made pos 
 sible of success, it can only result in the greatest 
 good to the greatest number, by its being fostered 
 and upheld and set in motion by men of tried and 
 tested probity, ability, and strength. Among such 
 men I count you. I rely upon your support, and I 
 want to tell you that if this change seems feasible, 
 I have in store for you a far higher office than the 
 one you hold now, one far more important and 
 powerful for good than the one even I hold at the 
 present time." 
 
 Rollins glanced about the room with contempt. 
 " I do not want it," he declared, " nor do I wish to 
 be taken any further into your confidence. Any 
 system of government which needs to be supported 
 by force else why the enormous standing army 
 you are now accumulating ? must result in oppres 
 sion, tyranny, and ultimate failure. I know now 
 that any change in government which you would 
 propose would be a retrogression, and for my part 
 I shall resist every such change, even to the minutest 
 degree, with every atom of my will, with every 
 breath of my voice, with every drop of blood in my 
 body!" 
 
 " Precisely why I want you with us," returned 
 Kelvin with the remarkable patience possessed only 
 by men of one dominating idea to which everything 
 else is subservient. " I like your principles and the
 
 294 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 way you present them, but I hope yet to show you 
 why, not from self-interest but from humanitarian 
 motives, you should approve the course I propose." 
 He was silent and thoughtful for a moment. Both 
 by instinct and experience he knew Rollins to be of 
 tremendous personal force. " I ll talk with you 
 again about this. In the meantime is there nothing 
 I can do for you in the way of appointments or 
 something of the sort? " 
 
 " Nothing whatever," said Rollins shortly, and 
 left the room. 
 
 He was followed immediately by Herbert Rensse- 
 laer, who came in so briskly that one who had 
 known him in his dawdling club days would scarcely 
 have recognized him now. On him a year of office 
 as Secretary of War had wrought wonderful 
 maturity. 
 
 " Hello, Phillip the First," said he, advancing to 
 the desk and shaking hands heartily with Kelvin. 
 
 " I wish you wouldn t use that form of address," 
 protested Phillip quietly. " You might say it in the 
 wrong place. How goes the enrolment ? " 
 
 " Splendidly," returned Rensselaer with enthu 
 siasm. " The army of the unemployed is rapidly 
 becoming the Army of the Republic. The increase 
 of my enlistment is almost in exact proportion to 
 the decrease in industry, almost in exact proportion 
 to the increase in riots, and our recruiting-stations
 
 NO CLAIM ON LILLIAN 295 
 
 are really busier places than the bread-stations. 
 Kelvin, to-day you are commander-in-chief of an 
 army of nearly half a million men." 
 
 " And still we have not enough," declared Kel 
 vin. " I must have the largest army in the world ; 
 the largest army in the world." He was not ad 
 dressing Rensselaer now, but himself; lost in vast 
 speculation, he fell into musing silence. 
 
 " By the way, old chap," ventured Rensselaer 
 presently, " I d like to speak with you about a rather 
 delicate matter, one I wouldn t dream of mentioning 
 if it were not for our long friendship during and 
 since the old cowboy days. It s about Miss Breed. 
 Er now don t take this amiss, Phill are you 
 contemplating anything serious in that direction?" 
 
 Kelvin was silent for so long that Herbert began 
 to think he had not heard, but presently he answered, 
 " Nothing whatever." 
 
 "Sure?" Herbert asked. 
 
 " Absolutely," Kelvin replied. 
 
 " Thank you," said Herbert slowly. " Rather a 
 caddish question, I know, Phill, but between us " 
 He, too, lapsed into troubled silence. 
 
 Kelvin seemed to be about to say something more, 
 but he did not.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 TWO GENTLEMEN MAKE MARRIAGE PROPOSALS, AND 
 DOCTOR ZELPHAN POINTS OUT AMERICA S DISEASE 
 
 < ( f~^\ AMT^lo you think that in a fight I could 
 ^^^ rely on your brother Peavy as I could on 
 1<-J you ? " asked Kelvin as he was dressing for 
 dinner that night. 
 
 " Deed Ah doan know, sah," answered Sam, 
 putting the studs in Phillip s shirt. " He s kin o 
 no count anyhow. When Ah foun im in Philan- 
 delphy he look jes lak one o dem cotton-field han s, 
 widout n no clothes ceptin bout two rags an a 
 string, an he wah a-loafin roun one o these hyah 
 low-down holes whar they sell nigger gin fo three 
 cents. O co se, senct he s got on fahn clothes an is 
 one o yo body sehvants, he s feelin maghty big- 
 gity; but Ah doan reckon Ah d place too much 
 liance on Peavy in a pinch." 
 
 " Well, we ll keep him for his looks then," said 
 Kelvin, laughing. " You want to be careful, 
 though, that he doesn t steal Lucy from you." 
 
 " Lucy ! Huh ! " grunted Sam, brushing the last 
 speck of dust from Kelvin s pumps. " Ef that 
 
 296
 
 TWO GENTLEMEN PROPOSE 297 
 
 wuthless coon eveh tuhns up the whites o his eyes 
 t wahd Lucy, Ah s goan t breck ev y bone in his 
 body. Heh heh! Lucy!" and Sam grinned un 
 til the scar on his cheek bent itself into the shape of 
 a sickle. 
 
 " You don t want to be too sure, Sam," cautioned 
 Kelvin, fastening his collar. " Peavy s as big as you 
 are to the exact inch, and I imagine he weighs as 
 much as you to the exact pound. Do you think you 
 could whip him ? " 
 
 "Whip im!" repeated Sam. " \Vhy, Mistuh 
 Phillip," he went on earnestly and with absolute 
 conviction, " yo see them two han s o mine ? Well, 
 sah, wid them two han s Ah kin lick ary man in all 
 this worl ! " 
 
 Kelvin, however, tiring of the banter, had strayed 
 to the table in the corner of his dressing-room, 
 where lay spread out one of the inevitable diagrams 
 with which he had planned all his projects; a huge 
 white sheet of cardboard, with an outline map of the 
 L T nited States drawn upon it, and with figures here 
 and there contiguous to large cities. Over these 
 he studied as he mechanically adjusted his tie. 
 
 " Sam, in the inside pocket of the coat I just took 
 off, you will find some reports given to me by Mr. 
 Rensselaer," he presently directed. " Bring them 
 here." From the papers Sam brought, he entered 
 some figures on the diagram, and once more re-
 
 298 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 viewed the entire situation. So many troops massed 
 here, so many there, so many in that other place, at 
 stations scattered thickly from coast to coast and 
 from Lakes to Gulf; grand total so many. He nod 
 ded his head in satisfaction, sweeping his eye over 
 his diagram. It became no longer a mere square of 
 white cardboard, but a vast, populous, fertile coun 
 try, comprising hills and meadows and lakes, moun 
 tains and plains and mighty rivers, cities and villages 
 and rural homes; a land of boundless extent, of 
 boundless resources, of boundless wealth and 
 beauty; and over this, all this, he had domain! 
 The little points upon his map were no longer 
 mere figures, but regiments of stalwart men 
 clad in the khaki of the United States govern 
 ment. He could hear the tramp of their feet, the 
 click of their guns, the clank of their sabers. The 
 ground shook under their rhythmic tread, while na 
 tions heard and trembled ; and these, all these, were 
 of his dominion! 
 
 As he finished the last touch of his dressing he 
 walked to the window. The twilight had fallen, and 
 above him in the dusky sky there shone out one 
 solitary silver star, as if it might be the star of his 
 destiny ! He smiled at the absurd thought, and yet, 
 accepting the star as at least a symbol of his fate, 
 his soul went out to it, swollen with dreams too 
 great, too vast, too daring for utterance; dreams
 
 TWO GENTLEMEN PROPOSE 299 
 
 that he dare not even speak aloud to himself lest he 
 should incur his own ridicule. An insatiate ambi 
 tion had taken possession of him. It had always 
 been there, he realized now, but it had grown with 
 his years and his opportunities. It had grown until 
 it encompassed the seas and the land beyond, until 
 it encircled the earth, and, finding there not suf 
 ficient food for its boundless hunger, swept on, like 
 the dreams of Alexander, to other worlds, to other 
 universes, to the conquest even of yon bright star! 
 Suddenly, laughing aloud at the folly of his own 
 immeasurable fancies, he wheeled, and, slipping on 
 the outer coat that Sam held for him, took his hat 
 and left the room. 
 
 At the porte-cochere he found waiting a limou 
 sine, with an open car before and behind it, each 
 of these extra cars carrying four silent and alert 
 members of the secret service. Peavy already sat 
 beside the chauffeur of the limousine, and Sam fol 
 lowed Kelvin into it, upon which all three of the 
 autos moved away. Just beyond Dupont Circle they 
 were delayed by a congestion of carriages and 
 limousines in front of an ambassadorial residence. 
 Kelvin glanced idly at the stream of entering guests 
 and then turned his attention to the house next door, 
 which was the one occupied by Rollins and his 
 mother. In the entrance, under the brilliant illumi 
 nation of the vestibule light, stood a girl whom, with
 
 300 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 a sudden painful stirring at his heart, he recognized 
 as Elsie White, now Mrs. Rollins companion. She 
 had loved him, this girl, loved him, he knew, with 
 an unselfish heart ever since he had been a penniless 
 prospector years before; loved him yet, he was sure; 
 and he had neglected this gift, had thrown it away! 
 There had come upon him latterly, intruding itself 
 between and among his stupendous ambitions, a 
 strange, new sense of loneliness. Then, too, per 
 haps, that other dalliance in which the strength of 
 his virility and the madness of his blood had per 
 mitted him to indulge, had taught him to value the 
 worth and the purity of this girl and her heart. 
 
 With a feeling of poignant jealousy, in the detec 
 tion of which he was impatient with himself, he in 
 spected the man who was talking with her. The 
 man s back was to the street, and he was rather 
 short and heavy-set. Kelvin could not make him 
 out, though he seemed familiar. Another man, tall 
 and thin and walking with a quick, nervous stride, 
 came up and spoke to the two in the doorway. The 
 heavy-set man turned, and Kelvin recognized in him 
 Elsie s father, but he turned quickly from his in 
 spection of this man to the new one, whose gaunt 
 features, as they revealed themselves in the light, 
 proved to be those of George Blagg. Kelvin, from 
 within his closed car, saw White start away with 
 Blagg, and Elsie apparently striving to coax him
 
 TWO GENTLEMEN PROPOSE 301 
 
 back. She even came out to the edge of the walk 
 and put her hand upon his arm. Blagg, however, 
 stepped roughly between them, and taking White s 
 arm walked away with him. An opening was made 
 just then in the crush of carriages, and Kelvin s cars 
 moved on. 
 
 They stopped again before a magnificent resi 
 dence recently vacated by a notorious railroad sena 
 tor who had not been " found available." Here 
 Kelvin, attended by two of his guards, ascended the 
 broad flight of stone steps, while Sam, released for 
 the time being, hurried back to the rear of the house 
 in search of Lucy. Leaving his secret service men 
 at the door, Kelvin found awaiting him, in the gar 
 ishly decorated library, Henry Breed. The old man 
 seemed shrunken since Kelvin had last seen him, 
 and his bald head exhibited a slight tendency to nod 
 rhythmically. His eyes were bright and keen and 
 shrewd, however, as he sat eagerly waiting for this 
 caller. 
 
 " Well, how goes it, my boy ? " he asked in his 
 senile old voice, rubbing his withered hands to 
 gether. 
 
 " Beyond our expectations, I think," replied Kel 
 vin. " The country is coming to exactly that state 
 of chaos where it can be handled. There is not a 
 city nor a village but is in a state of turmoil and 
 panic, and ready for anything, just so it is a change.
 
 302 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 I am having a little trouble in forcing through the 
 army and navy appropriations, but I shall get pre 
 cisely \vhat I want, which is an absolutely free hand. 
 The enlistment is proceeding even more rapidly than 
 I had hoped. Within three months more I shall 
 have the largest and most efficient army ever placed 
 under the control of one man." 
 
 "Excellent!" said Breed. "Excellent! And 
 then, Kelvin, things must be settled very quickly; 
 very quickly indeed. My cash supply is not in 
 creasing. It stands now but a trifle over a billion 
 and a half. Why, even the government could, if 
 it chose, control nearly as much cash as I can. 
 This unsettled condition, of course, is the means 
 to an end, but in the meantime it is very bad for 
 business. Very bad." 
 
 " I don t think we ll attempt to accumulate much 
 more cash for a long time," announced Kelvin. " In 
 fact, I think that after things are settled down we ll 
 let go of some of it." 
 
 " Let go of it ! " protested Breed, becoming in 
 stantly excited. " Impossible ! Impossible ! Why, 
 the very backbone of all our operations, all the 
 force that has made us, all the power which 
 has given us control of public utilities, private 
 business, and government itself, is locked up in that 
 impregnable vault beneath my cellar at Forest
 
 TWO GENTLEMEN PROPOSE 303 
 
 Lakes! And would you destroy this tremendous 
 dynamo by weakening it? " 
 
 " No," said Phillip dryly. " I do not aim to de 
 stroy it. I only aim to use it. I can guarantee you 
 that I shall propose nothing that would lessen my 
 own grasp of public affairs." 
 
 Breed was thoughtful for a moment, and then he 
 chuckled and nodded his head voluntarily, his parch 
 ment-like face breaking into leathern wrinkles. " I 
 guess you are right, my boy," he admitted. " I 
 haven t seen you do anything yet that would lessen 
 your own power; nor mine," he added, " nor mine. 
 You have been doing wonderfully well, Phillip 
 wonderfully well. But come with me ; I have a sur 
 prise for you." 
 
 Up into his own suite rooms, all of them, too 
 ornate and gay and young of color for the occu 
 pancy of rusty old Henry Breed he led Kelvin, 
 and from the bottom of one of his trunks he took 
 a heavy robe of carmine velvet and ermine, with 
 childish delight drawing its luxurious folds around 
 his tall and stooping body. From the hat-box of 
 his trunk he took a wonderful creation in gold and 
 jewels and set it upon his head. He brought forth 
 a rod of polished ebony tipped with gold and set 
 with one huge, glittering diamond in its end, then 
 stood, half simpering, before Kelvin, accoutered
 
 304 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 royally with robe and scepter and crown. Kelvin 
 could scarcely repress a smile, and yet, with all ap 
 parent seriousness, he nodded his head in grave 
 approval. These baubles seemed to change the cur 
 rent of Breed s thought. 
 
 " The Lord s anointed," he quavered, holding 
 forth his scepter in an unsteady hand. " Mine is 
 the appointed hand to chastise my people for their 
 follies and their ingratitude. Mine is the hand to 
 humble them. Mine is the hand to set them anew 
 in the paths of peace and plenty." 
 
 Into his eyes had come that dilation of the pupils 
 which Kelvin recognized instantly as a return of 
 that more and more frequent erraticism. 
 
 " It is a very handsome outfit, and must have 
 cost a fortune," commented Kelvin briskly. " You 
 don t want to keep them here, however." 
 
 " No," agreed Breed. " I only wanted to show 
 them to you. I just got them to-day from Tif 
 fany s, to to have them handy when the time 
 comes, you know." He had sunk his voice here 
 to a whisper. " I had intended to take them to 
 Forest Lakes," he went on, " but but we might 
 want them suddenly, and I ll just put them away 
 here. I ve made a hiding-place since I bought this 
 house for Lillian. I found I could not do without 
 secret quarters somewhere. I can trust you, of 
 course; but only you and Lillian."
 
 TWO GENTLEMEN PROPOSE 305 
 
 He waited anxiously for Kelvin to reassure him 
 of this, and then took a big suit-case from a closet 
 in his room and hurriedly packed the expensive 
 gauds into it. 
 
 " By the way, Phillip," said he in an unusually 
 wheedling tone, " how much money have you with 
 you?" 
 
 " I don t know," returned Kelvin, a trifle sur 
 prised. " A little over a hundred, I think." 
 
 " You won t need it to-night, I am sure," said 
 Breed. " You can get some any place when you 
 go out, if you do." 
 
 " Yes," assented Kelvin, reaching his hand in his 
 pocket. 
 
 " I have need for a little ready cash," Breed 
 stated expectantly ; " just a little ready cash." 
 
 He took the money eagerly and counted it over 
 and over. 
 
 " One hundred and fourteen dollars," said he, 
 stuffing it deeply into his pocket. " You may just 
 charge this to my account." 
 
 He picked up the suit-case hurriedly. 
 
 " Go down to the library," he directed. " I ll re 
 turn in a few moments," and he started through the 
 hall toward the back stairway. 
 
 Phillip stood looking after him a moment, puz 
 zled, and as Breed turned the corner Doctor Zel- 
 phan came from a room opposite. He too looked
 
 306 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 at the retiring form of Breed and then turned his 
 thick spectacles in Kelvin s direction. 
 
 " Did he borrow any money of you? " he asked 
 abruptly, every hair of his flaming beard apparently 
 pointing outward in indignant query. 
 
 " One hundred and fourteen dollars," replied 
 Kelvin, smiling. 
 
 " I knew it," declared Zelphan. " Don t let him 
 have any more. The man has gone money-mad. 
 Do you know that on account of all that cash he has 
 stored in his vault at Forest Lakes he can t stay here 
 more than two days at a time? Even while he is 
 here he must have a secret hoard to gloat over, 
 and has built him a steel vault in the cellar, pro 
 tected by three combination locks. Every time he 
 sees a dollar of cash he must have it. He borrows 
 my salary from me regularly, sometimes the very 
 day he pays it to me. He borrows money from 
 Mrs. Rensselaer, from Rollins, from Herbert, from 
 his granddaughter, even from the servants, and 
 every penny of it he hoards. When any of them 
 protests he reluctantly pays it back by check." 
 
 " I did not know that he was so weak," said Kel 
 vin shocked. " I have been aware that the condi 
 tion was growing upon him, but I had no idea that 
 he had gone so far with his eccentricities." 
 
 "Eccentricities!" snorted the doctor. "He s
 
 TWO GENTLEMEN PROPOSE 307 
 
 crazy ; crazy as a loon. You re all crazy, the whole 
 crowd of you, victims of the American craving for 
 what you call success. Breed is mad for money; 
 Mrs. Rensselaer is mad for social position; her 
 nephew is mad for military conquest ; Blagg is mad 
 for notoriety; Lillian Breed is a neurotic, mad of 
 itching nerves, of passion and of lust. You are the 
 maddest of them all ; mad with the thirst for power ! 
 You are representative, each of you, of your whole 
 nation, which knows no peace, no content, no vic 
 tory; for one battle gained forms only a vantage 
 point for further warfare, until you die! Your 
 entire race is neurasthenic and, combating this, 
 eaten alive of a wild scramble for you know not 
 what. It is going to end in a crash, with all your 
 institutions, all your ideals, all your ends and aims 
 and ambitions clattering down about your ears, the 
 most thoroughly shattered and crumbled wreck and 
 ruin of a social structure in the history of the world. 
 As nations have risen, so have they fallen. Those 
 that have been the most rapid in their rise to 
 supremacy have been the most rapid in disintegra 
 tion. The trouble with America is that its speed 
 revolutions have been so accelerated that at last the 
 fly-wheel is bound to burst. Already your pro- 
 rata birth-rate is decreasing, and would be much 
 more rapidly decreased were it not for the constant
 
 3 o8 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 influx of virile foreigners of the lower or breed 
 ing class. A century will see America as sterile as 
 France." 
 
 Kelvin nodded his head with an emphatic jerk. 
 " There is nothing new or startling in your theories, 
 but in the main they are correct," he admitted. 
 " That is precisely why there must be an utter 
 change in our entire social system. But this is 
 rather a surprising outbreak on your part, Doctor. 
 I did not know that you had devoted so much 
 thought to these things," and Phillip s lips curved 
 in a smile of mild amusement. 
 
 " Bah ! " exploded the doctor, snapping the fingers 
 of both hands. " I don t talk all I think. I have 
 talked too much now, but in my desk I have manu 
 scripts so thick," and with his hands he indicated a 
 pile nearly a foot high. " It is my great book on 
 national neuroticism. I came to America to study 
 it. Mr. Breed, who was losing his physical and 
 mental equipoise and knew it, heard of me and sent 
 for me. Do you suppose that I would have taken 
 the position of house physician to him if I had not 
 found clustered about him exactly the material I 
 wished for my book on alienism ? No ! I have spent 
 a lifetime on neural deterioration considered from 
 a racial standpoint. I spent a year and a half in 
 China, one in Japan, one in Russia, three in France, 
 two in England, and five years scattered about in
 
 39 
 
 other parts of Europe and Asia. Now I am nearly 
 four years in America. I shall wait till Henry 
 Breed dies. He will die in a year, or possibly two. 
 Then I shall spend two or three years in travel 
 among the uncivilized peoples and go back to 
 Switzerland to publish my great work. I shall die 
 myself soon after that. I, too, have a fatal nervous 
 disease, but it can not kill me before five years, and 
 I can not live beyond seven. But my book will live. 
 That will be the valuable part of Doctor Zelphan. 
 Immortality of the soul? No. Immortality of the 
 body? No. Immortality of the brain? Yes. 
 For ever! " 
 
 " Possibly," agreed Phillip dryly. " No doubt, 
 Doctor, your work will be accepted as a standard. 
 No doubt it will prove a vast revelation to the med 
 ical fraternity and to a few students of sociology. 
 Five years afterward some other savant will write 
 another four-volume work upsetting all your 
 theories, and five years after that somebody will 
 mention your name to a noted alienist or student of 
 neurotics and he will say: Zelphan? Doctor 
 Zelphan? Um-m-m-m, the name seems a trifle fa 
 miliar. Didn t he discover one of those exploded 
 serum treatments or something? 
 
 " Bah ! " snapped the doctor, and his red beard, 
 now beginning to streak with gray, seemed to turn 
 redder from the redness of his face behind it.
 
 310 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " Bah ! " he repeated, but this time the exclamation 
 was weaker, and Phillip, as he went down-stairs, 
 felt a prick of compunction at having hit the doctor 
 such a vital blow. 
 
 Phillip found the library deserted and sat down 
 with his back to the door to examine a volume on 
 numismatics that lay open upon the table. Soft 
 hands were suddenly pressed over his eyes, and as 
 he took them quietly away a velvet cheek nestled 
 down against his own. Knowing well whom he 
 should see, he turned to find Lillian Breed, be- 
 witchingly handsome and gowned in a marvelous 
 creation of lace, smiling into his eyes. She leaned 
 forward and, clasping him about the shoulders, 
 pressed her lips warmly to his. At the touch all 
 in him that responded to her leaped up, and for a 
 moment he crushed her in his arms and returned 
 her kiss with something akin to fierceness. Then 
 he thrust her away from him almost roughly. 
 
 " You are most indiscreet," he protested, looking 
 at the wide-open door. 
 
 "Why not?" she demanded, laughing. "If 
 somebody stepped in upon us we should only have 
 to make an announcement." 
 
 He winced involuntarily at that, and she saw it. 
 Lillian, after years of almost hopeless training, had 
 at last made her debut, and she had dazzled all 
 Washington by her vivacity, her wit, her beauty
 
 TWO GENTLEMEN PROPOSE 311 
 
 charms that were in no wise impaired by the fact 
 that she was the granddaughter and only heir of 
 the richest man the world had ever known. She 
 could pick and choose as she would, and, impelled 
 by the riot of her always wayward senses, had cast 
 the eye of coquetry upon a score of eager suitors; 
 but here was the only one among them all, and 
 him by no means a suitor, who had the power to 
 hurt her as she was now hurt. There had been 
 that between them, too, which makes a woman 
 fonder and a man more careless. For a moment 
 she laid her hands upon her breast, but she was sur 
 prised to find that there came no hot retort, usually 
 so ready upon her lips. Without effort, without 
 exerting himself to do so, Kelvin had for the time 
 being tamed the wild panther within her, and her 
 only impulse she found to be one of conciliation. 
 The quick instinct came within her that she must 
 charm him anew or she would lose him, and that 
 her physical charm, though it had not lost its 
 potency, would not be enough. She had won him 
 once, but by unwise methods, for in winning him 
 she had lost him, and she must win him again. 
 She smiled up at him, her swift wit settling upon 
 the quick change of topic that might interest him 
 in her mental qualities; but prompt as she was 
 there came an interruption in the person of Doctor 
 Zelphan, who called Phillip peremptorily.
 
 3 i2 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " I want to show you something," he said to 
 Phillip at the door. " Breed is down in his vault 
 dressed in all the gaudy mummery of a lodge in 
 itiation, squatted flat on the floor, with money scat 
 tered all about him and his old Bible before him 
 on a chair, like a Voodoo idol; and he is jabbering 
 garbled texts that in his interpretation are worse 
 than blasphemy." 
 
 Lillian, left to herself, stood a moment, her breast 
 heaving, and then dropped into the chair that Kel 
 vin had vacated and grew deeply thoughtful. She 
 had scarcely moved when, at the end of about 
 twenty minutes, Herbert Rensselaer was announced. 
 Arousing herself at once she received him with her 
 usual vivacity. It was he who was the one ill at 
 ease, and presently he broke into the frothy con 
 versation in which they were indulging, with a 
 much more serious note. 
 
 " It is a pleasure to find you alone," he observed. 
 " You are so very popular that an edgewise word 
 with you is a rare boon." 
 
 " This is Mr. Kelvin s night," she reminded him. 
 " As Phillip Kelvin we could entertain him with 
 the usual crush that Mrs. Rensselaer has managed 
 to secure for us, but as the president, his dinners 
 with my grandfather have to be entirely private 
 and almost incognito." 
 
 " I don t think the credit for the usual crush
 
 TWO GENTLEMEN PROPOSE 313 
 
 should be given so much to my aunt as to your 
 self," objected Herbert. " You ve made yourself 
 the sensation of Washington." 
 
 " No," Lillian protested thoughtfully. " I may 
 have achieved some personal popularity, but much 
 more, it is humiliating to confess, is due to grand 
 father s position in the world and the capitalized 
 force it represents. I doubt if even money, how 
 ever, could have secured me the recognition which 
 Mrs. Rensselaer has won for me. The Rensselaer 
 name is a powerful one socially." 
 
 " It is just that about which I was going to speak 
 to you," said Herbert with an awkward bluntness 
 surprising in one of his breeding, until one remem 
 bered his early cowboy experiences with Kelvin. 
 " I am prepared to offer you the Rensselaer name 
 for your own." 
 
 Lillian looked up at him and smiled. 
 
 " The dream of your respected aunt," she 
 laughed. " Herbert, you re a nice boy, but I m 
 not in love with you. Are you with me ? " 
 
 He considered that matter thoughtfully for a 
 little time. 
 
 " Well, no," he confessed with infinite relief. 
 
 " I thought not," she returned, still laughing. 
 " It is a pity to disappoint your aunty, but let s 
 do that very thing. You re too good a friend of 
 mine to spoil."
 
 314 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " I m beginning to like you immensely," con 
 fessed Herbert. " Let s shake hands on it ;" which 
 they cordially did, and the Secretary of War gave 
 up, quite easily, certain daring ambitions of his own 
 which he had founded upon his aunt s urgings, and 
 the consideration of Lillian Breed s millions. 
 
 At almost the same moment Suinner Rollins had 
 made a quite different proposal, one with the whole 
 heart and the whole love and the whole honor of 
 a stalwart man, and Elsie White, with sorrow that 
 it must be so, searched in her heart and found for 
 him only friendship, friendship, it is true, grown 
 strangely dear to her, but still only friendship ; and 
 the man whose image blocked the way of Rollins 
 was thinking of her even then, to the entire forget- 
 fulness of Lillian Breed.
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 LILLIAN ARRANGES A LITTLE SURPRISE FOR PHILLIP 
 IN HER OWN BOUDOIR 
 
 IN a hundred cities there was riot and discord. 
 In a thousand villages there was grave panic. 
 In a million homes there was hunger. The 
 persistent detention of cash from circulation, the 
 interference with the logical evolution of business, 
 the sudden upheaval of all the social and economic 
 conditions which had been developing for the past 
 two centuries, had thrown the country into a tur 
 moil. Commerce was paralyzed and, three months 
 after Senator Sawyer had threatened a revolt, the 
 entire United States was in a state bordering on 
 anarchy. In the cities, particularly, there was a 
 most dangerous condition. The time for public 
 mass-meetings had gone by. Processions of the un 
 employed had been clubbed into disruption. Street- 
 corner speakers, among whom Ben White had 
 become prominent for a certain rudely effective ora 
 tory, were suppressed. Gatherings in halls were 
 censored by the police, the militia, or the rapidly 
 increasing army of regular soldiers, and were 
 315
 
 316 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 broken up, sometimes with bloodshed, at the least 
 sign of inflammatory speech. The consequence was 
 natural. Secret meetings were held everywhere, 
 and the emissaries of Blagg gained converts by 
 the tens and the hundreds of thousands from coast 
 to coast. The chaos that Kelvin had deliberately 
 inaugurated to serve his own ends was serving the 
 ends of Blagg equally well. Where men, welcomed 
 for their physical superiority, were driven by the 
 need of employment to the now staggering pay-roll 
 of the regular army, others were driven to the 
 desperate oaths of Blagg s organization. They 
 could not be held patient the werwolves of all this 
 vast secret society and here and there, especially 
 in congested districts, scenes of the utmost violence 
 were enacted. The throwing of bombs, with terrific 
 consequence to public safety, became common, so 
 common, indeed, that the life of no public man was 
 secure; yet Kelvin, attended by his usual guard, 
 went everywhere. He seemed to bear a charmed 
 life, and on the very day he declared martial law 
 throughout the Union, when every newspaper was 
 against him and when countless hordes were clam 
 oring for his death, he went calmly to Forest Lakes 
 to keep an appointment with Henry Breed, who, 
 by the doctor s command, was compelled to re 
 main at home. Five hundred grim, armed men, 
 indifferent to the turmoil of the world outside, now
 
 LILLIAN ARRANGES A SURPRISE 317 
 
 guarded the grounds, and Kelvin spoke of them the 
 moment he met Breed. 
 
 " I want your men," said he. " I have examined 
 the faces of them. They are mountaineers every 
 one, and men of blind allegiance. I need them in 
 Washington." 
 
 " No," protested Breed. " I have been years in 
 selecting them, and they must stay here to guard 
 Forest Lakes and me, and what you know to be in 
 the vault below." 
 
 " The vault needs no guarding," replied Kelvin. 
 " We ll remove its contents very shortly to the gov 
 ernment treasury, anyhow. The time is ripe, and 
 my plan is to be carried out at once." 
 
 " Our plan, you mean," corrected Breed, smil 
 ing, whereat Kelvin s eyes contracted for a second. 
 
 It was significant of the remarkable control that 
 Kelvin had obtained over this man, whose once in 
 domitable will had bent the commerce of a nation 
 to his own ends, that he protested no further against 
 the appropriation of his picked guards. Instead, he 
 turned eagerly to the immense portfolio which Sam 
 brought in. Spreading this upon the library table, 
 Kelvin opened it, disclosing a thick stack of the 
 large diagrams so characteristic of him. 
 
 " I have had a small army of statisticians, under 
 the charge of your invaluable Jens, upon these for 
 the last three months," observed Phillip, " and at
 
 3 i8 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 last I have them in very comprehensive shape. 
 There are a few matters, however, upon which I 
 want the benefit of your experience." 
 
 Breed, restored at once to his shrewd old cal 
 culating self, leafed carefully over the neat card 
 board diagrams which gave, in turn, comprehensive 
 surveys of the entire extent, condition, and pros 
 pects of textile manufacturers, of the steel industry, 
 of meat packing, of merchandising, of every branch 
 of human industry and commerce, each with all its 
 ramifications. From the experience of his nearly 
 fourscore years Breed made crisp, brief, and preg 
 nant comment upon each industry, upon which oc 
 cupation Doctor Zelphan beamed through his thick 
 spectacles with approval, for Breed was never so 
 normal as at these conferences, when the habit of his 
 business perspicacity came upon him. Far into the 
 night they sat over this work, with Zelphan and 
 Rensselaer and, for a time, Lillian as interested 
 lookers-on, and when it came time for Phillip to 
 retire he was very weary. Leaving the others still 
 in conversation, he was about to make his way 
 to his own apartments, but Lucy met him at the 
 head of the stairs. 
 
 " They have been making some repairs up that 
 way, Mr. Kelvin," she informed him, " and we ll 
 have to change your rooms for this visit." 
 
 She led him back into the other wing of the
 
 LILLIAN ARRANGES A SURPRISE 319 
 
 house, and he frowned as he noted that the room 
 into which he was shown adjoined the suite Lillian 
 occupied. Inside the room he examined the com 
 municating door. There was no key in it, but, 
 stooping down to inspect the bolt, he could see that 
 it was locked, and with a nod of satisfaction he 
 made haste to get to rest. He had scarcely begun 
 to undress, however, when the communicating door 
 opened, and Lillian, clad in the same kimono in 
 which she had before entered his private apart 
 ments at the Esplanade in New York, came in, 
 laughing as if her act were but a childish prank. 
 
 " Have you no discretion whatever? " Kelvin de 
 manded with some impatience. 
 
 " Not much," she answered gaily. " What is 
 the use of it in a poky, humdrum place like this, 
 where everybody is deaf, dumb, and blind? Come, 
 I want to show you something." 
 
 " I ll look at it in the morning," returned Kelvin. 
 
 " In the morning won t do," she insisted. " It 
 will be too late, then." 
 
 She insisted so strongly that Kelvin finally 
 went with her into her own apartments. She went 
 to her desk and brought a letter. 
 
 " See," she said, " I have found a note written by 
 George Blagg to Ben White, the father of your 
 precious friend Elsie, while he was still gardener. 
 You know grandfather insisted on keeping him here
 
 320 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 long after I discharged that enterprising young 
 woman. There are some important state secrets in 
 this letter. Blagg has been contracting for a mil 
 lion rifles, for one thing." As she spoke she seemed 
 to be listening intently. Phillip reached out his 
 hand for the missive. She thrust it quickly behind 
 her back and looked up at him with bantering eyes. 
 "Is that the way you express your thanks?" she 
 playfully protested. " You sha n t have it until you 
 show yourself more grateful than that," and she 
 pursed up her lips. 
 
 With something of reluctance Phillip bent for 
 ward to give her the stipulated kiss, and as he did 
 so she suddenly threw her arms about his neck. 
 Whatever remained in him of response to her wild 
 attachment, in spite of all his resolution, sprang 
 instantly to momentary life and, overcome by her 
 wiles, though for the last time, he clasped her in 
 a mad embrace, while the blood pounded at his 
 temples and smarted his eyes and throbbed in his 
 ears. At that instant the hall door opened wide at 
 the hand of Lucy, and Henry Breed stalked in, 
 followed by Doctor Zelphan and Herbert Rensse- 
 laer and his aunt. Phillip and Lillian instantly 
 sprang apart, but it was too late. The tableau had 
 been seen. The sudden visitors were hardly pre 
 pared for this revealment, for they were all shocked, 
 Henry Breed was the first to find his voice.
 
 LILLIAN ARRANGES A SURPRISE 321 
 
 "Lucy told us that Lillian wished to see us in 
 her room, and led the way," he observed dryly; 
 " but Lucy seems to have been mistaken." 
 
 " She was," asserted Lillian coolly ; " but since 
 you are here I may as well tell you a bit of news, 
 grandfather. You may announce to-morrow that 
 the long-standing secret engagement between Phil 
 lip and myself is to culminate in an immediate wed 
 ding. We were just discussing the date. I think 
 about the first of next month will suit us best, 
 won t it, Phillip?" and her hand sought his. 
 
 Phillip, half confused, half angry, put as good 
 a face upon the matter as he could, and agreed 
 with every appearance of suavity that the first was 
 the ideal date. Having announced their intention, 
 the surprised couple were able to look their cap 
 tors in the face with more or less of cool defiance. 
 In Herbert s eyes Kelvin saw grave remonstrance. 
 Doctor Zelphan was openly chuckling. Henry 
 Breed was smiling and rubbing his withered old 
 palms together. Nothing could have suited him 
 better than this end, even though through this 
 means. The shocked and horrified Mrs. Rensse- 
 laer finally found her motive power, and sailing 
 into the room took Lillian s arm under her own 
 and marched away with her to her own apartments, 
 casting looks of scorn and contempt upon the rude 
 and uncouth gentlemen there present. Doctor Zel-
 
 322 iTHE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 phan, after the ladies had gone, was the first to 
 congratulate Phillip, shaking hands with him 
 heartily. 
 
 " It is a wonderful match," said he with sardonic 
 glee; "an ideal match. I could not have picked 
 out any two individuals more perfectly mated to 
 produce the the entirely typical offspring of fu 
 ture America." 
 
 Henry Breed delightedly patted Kelvin on the 
 shoulder and called him son, and it never seemed 
 to cross his mind that there had been anything in 
 the circumstances to incur his disapproval, if not 
 his anger. Rensselaer lingered long enough to 
 protest. 
 
 " I say, old man," said he, " you might have been 
 fair enough to give a fellow a correct tip when I 
 asked you in the first place. You ve let me make 
 an ass of myself. I finally gave in to the aunt and 
 proposed to Miss Breed not long ago. I I wish 
 you happiness." 
 
 Kelvin looked enigmatically into Rensselaer s 
 eyes, abruptly laughed aloud, and then, wheeling, 
 turned into his own room.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 KELVIN GAINS AN EMPIRE AND LOSES THE 
 LOVE OF A GIRL 
 
 STALWART soldiers surrounded the White 
 House grounds in lines two deep. From 
 the gates to the main entrance the way was 
 lined upon both sides with bronzed and weather- 
 seamed, and, for the most part, gray-bearded non 
 descripts who stood slouchily in their olive-green 
 khaki and who had nothing of the bearing of sol 
 diers in their attitude. They were a strange lot, 
 full five hundred of them, and yet any one disposed 
 to laugh at the awkward line had only to look into 
 the stern succession of mirthless eyes to know that 
 here was dogged fighting blood ; and ridicule which 
 began at the feet and swept up to unkempt beards 
 stopped abruptly at those eyes. Without, in the 
 streets of Washington, faint echo of the conditions 
 in other and more vitally disturbed cities, great 
 throngs of the discontented gathered and shifted 
 and circled and eddied, forming into groups that 
 fell away at the approach of police or soldiery, only 
 to form again into new groups; and the com- 
 
 3 2 3
 
 324 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 posite sound of their muttering was a hoarse and 
 heavy growl. They gathered near to the White 
 House, but they kept at a respectful distance from 
 the soldiery. Already, throughout the length and 
 breadth of the land, there had been sufficient clashes 
 to set citizen against soldier and soldier against 
 citizen, and recruits that but the day before yester 
 day had spat at a uniform and yesterday had been 
 driven by necessity into the employ of the army, 
 to-day found themselves arrayed against their 
 former comrades, and spat at the plain citizenry! 
 Mutterings and grumblings were so universal as to 
 blend into a guttural monotone; and yet, after all, 
 there was more anxiety than anger in the voice of 
 the public, and the great question was: .What 
 next? 
 
 What next ! In what was it all to end ? Within 
 the White House there were throngs of those who 
 deemed that they had a right to inquire, to argue, 
 to protest, to denounce; for there were signs on 
 every hand which might well turn the mind of 
 any man to broader thoughts than self. The 
 outer rooms forming the approach to Kelvin s pri 
 vate office were crowded, and in the one next to 
 his visitors were so packed that egress, even for 
 the president himself, would have been impossible. 
 That door was kept locked. Two stalwart officers 
 held it, and as Kelvin, sitting in calm pomp with
 
 THE LOVE OF A GIRL 325 
 
 his two huge, gaudily liveried negroes behind him, 
 enigmatically disposed of one agitated patriot after 
 another, the officers opened the door a little way 
 and called a name and let in one struggling, per 
 spiring man or his carefully counted delegation; 
 and the shrill crowd in that outer room so bulged 
 that it took the united strength of the two gigantic 
 guards to close the door again. Heavy book-cases 
 had been placed against the door opening into the 
 hall, and the only other means of egress and ingress 
 was by a private door leading to a small room 
 which, in turn, opened toward the carriage entrance. 
 Just now, Kelvin was entertaining a delegation 
 picked by himself. They were his cabinet officers, 
 and they were pale and nervous to a man. Added 
 to them were two strangely out-of-place groups, the 
 one consisting of Henry and Lillian Breed, Jens 
 Nelson, and Doctor Zelphan, and the other of Rol 
 lins and Elsie White. All of these had been ad 
 mitted by the private door. The arrival of the 
 latter two groups was disconcerting to Phillip 
 at the moment, although, after a slight period of 
 cogitation, he had ordered them both admitted. 
 Rollins and Elsie White came last, and the moment 
 they had entered Phillip ordered the door to be re- 
 locked. He had been upon the point of making 
 an important announcement to his waiting and 
 apparently prepared cabinet, and now, his small au-
 
 326 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 dience once more quiet, he raised his hand im 
 pressively; but before he could speak Elsie White 
 hurried forward to him. 
 
 "Look in your desk, quickly, but carefully!" 
 she cried. " An infernal machine is concealed 
 there, timed to explode at twelve ! " 
 
 She was deathly pale. There were dark rings 
 under her eyes. Evidently she had passed a sleep 
 less night. Phillip, obeying his habit of mentally 
 ignoring sudden and agitated thoughts that he 
 might consider them in forced calmness, looked 
 down upon her compassionately, and the moment 
 for which Elsie had waited all these years had at 
 last almost arrived; to-day she stood nearer to him 
 in affection than any other living creature. There 
 had come upon him a new gravity, as well there 
 might, in view of the fates that might be impend 
 ing, and he had suddenly felt a need that had 
 never before appealed to him. It had begun to 
 dawn upon him that Elsie was that need ; Elsie, 
 whose heart he knew had been faithful to him 
 throughout all these years. Love had come to him 
 at last. Well, there was still time. He had 
 fought and he had won. The moment of his 
 triumph was at hand, and with the fruits of that 
 triumph he would crown Love. All this in a flash; 
 then came the consideration of Elsie s news and a 
 recourse to that theatricalism which, beginning with
 
 THE LOVE OF A GIRL 327 
 
 a deliberate intention to be impressive, had grown 
 into more or less of a habit with him. He glanced 
 at the clock. It was then barely ten. Jens Nelson 
 had started hastily toward the door, but now he 
 returned to the side of Doctor Zelphan. 
 
 " According to that we have plenty of time," 
 Phillip said calmly. 
 
 "Look!" Elsie frantically insisted. "The ma 
 chine might be faulty. It was timed for twelve 
 because it is known that you never leave until one, 
 but there is danger this very second! Every act 
 of your daily routine has been studied, and in a 
 half dozen places these things lie in wait for you. 
 Here is a list of them," and she gave him a paper. 
 " Moreover, to-day at noon there will be flashed 
 from one end of the country to the other, by tele 
 graph and by wireless, George Blagg s command to 
 begin fighting. He has an immense secret army 
 ready, awaiting this word. Only a small propor 
 tion of the men are armed, but they intend to take 
 their weapons from the soldiers. His entire forces 
 are to rise at once and capture the states simul 
 taneously, from coast to coast, by the suddenness 
 of their attack." 
 
 Kelvin looked up from the paper she had given 
 him. 
 
 " How do you know these things? " he demanded. 
 
 .What little color there had been in Elsie s face
 
 328 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 left it suddenly. Even her lips were as white as 
 paper. " I can not tell you," she murmured faintly. 
 
 Kelvin nodded his head. He surmised well 
 through what source her information had come, 
 though he did not know how she had secured it. 
 This vast conspiracy had Ben White as one of its 
 weak arms. 
 
 "But hurry, Phillip! Hurry!" pleaded Elsie, 
 using his familiar name unconsciously. "If you 
 find there what I have told you, you may know 
 that all the rest is true." 
 
 " It is probably true enough," replied Phillip 
 calmly. " Herbert, I had wished you to be here 
 when I made my announcement, but you know what 
 it is, as do the others of my cabinet, and what your 
 share in it is to be. I shall excuse you for the time 
 being. Wire at once to every military force under 
 your command to be in readiness for this uprising." 
 
 One of the attendants opened the private door and 
 let Herbert out. Kelvin stooped and opened every 
 drawer of his desk on either side, but found noth 
 ing. He turned to Elsie with a slight smile, but 
 she was on her knees now in front of the desk, 
 with her ear applied to it. 
 
 " Search further," she insisted. " I hear some 
 thing ticking." 
 
 Again Kelvin looked through the drawers and 
 found nothing unusual.
 
 THE LOVE OF A GIRL 329 
 
 " Pull out the bottom one on this side, and look 
 underneath it," she directed, with now almost fran 
 tic insistence. 
 
 Kelvin did so. Under the right-hand bottom 
 drawer, in the six inches of enclosed space left 
 between it and the floor, he found a wooden box, 
 four inches high, a foot wide, and two feet long. 
 This he pulled out carefully and set upon his desk. 
 Applying his ear to it he detected a faint ticking. 
 It was locked in three places in front and in two 
 places on the rear between the hinges. He handed 
 it to one of the negroes. 
 
 " Have this removed to some safe place at once," 
 he ordered. 
 
 " Deed no ! Not me ! " protested the quaking 
 voice of Peavy as he very, very gently slid the box 
 back on the desk and then sprang away from it. 
 " Ah s suttainly boun an termined to be planted 
 in mah grave whole, Ah is ! " 
 
 Sam, though a curious ashen gray with fear, 
 picked up the box, but one of the big officers, a 
 white man, took it quietly from his hands, and 
 went out the door with it. 
 
 Kelvin glanced after him mechanically and turned 
 slowly to his cabinet. " Gentlemen," he began, 
 " the United States is in a condition of absolute 
 anarchy." 
 
 " Wait a minute," suddenly quavered the shrill
 
 330 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 voice of Henry Breed. " Wait a half hour, Phillip. 
 I wouldn t believe Jens, and I didn t bring that robe 
 along." 
 
 Jens looked at him with a curious smile. Breed 
 had not been invited to this gathering. Jens had 
 brought him perforce. 
 
 Phillip held up his hand for silence. " The coun 
 try is in a state of absolute anarchy," he repeated. 
 " It has been working to that end for a quarter of 
 a century, more and more rapidly each year. Re 
 cent developments have hastened the crisis. It is 
 necessary that a radical change in our entire social 
 system be inaugurated at once to save us from riot, 
 bloodshed and starvation." His eyes sought a type 
 written sheet lying on the desk before him. " Now, 
 therefore, I, the chief executive of the nation, issue 
 the following proclamation: That all public util 
 ities and private enterprises are hereby confiscated 
 by the government for the benefit of the govern 
 ment and the people; that all present owners and 
 managers of these enterprises shall remain in their 
 present employments and conduct these enterprises 
 for the government; that all factories, mills, stores, 
 and establishments of commerce of whatsoever na 
 ture which have ceased operation be immediately 
 reopened, and all seekers of employment be 
 given work to the full capacity of these plants. 
 The government will insure the payment of
 
 THE LOVE OF A GIRL 331 
 
 wages, will become responsible for all liabilities, 
 and become the holder of all assets. All holdings 
 of cash and of stocks, bonds or other securities, ex 
 cept those reposing in banks, hereby become the 
 property of the government. All banks, whether 
 national or private, are hereby appointed and taken 
 over as branches of the governmental treasury, and 
 no money shall be paid out without official order. 
 All factories, mills, and enterprises of whatsoever 
 nature, having started work at once, shall issue, 
 until further adjustment, time-checks at the pre 
 vious rates of employment, which time-checks shall 
 be taken in payment by all merchandise concerns, 
 the same as legal tender, until the government shall 
 have time for adjustment. Every able-bodied man 
 in the United States between the ages of twenty 
 and sixty is hereby ordered to return to his previous 
 employment, or, if previously without employment, 
 to apply at the nearest center of industry. Any 
 able-bodied person, as described, found idle within 
 one week after this proclamation, without valid ex 
 cuse, shall be arrested and imprisoned. Any citi 
 zen found armed within twenty-four hours after 
 this proclamation shall be shot for treason without 
 trial. 
 
 " To all the foregoing I have hereunto set my 
 hand and seal. 
 
 " PHILLIP KELVIN EMPEROR."
 
 332 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 A sigh of relief and immeasurably more burst 
 from the lips of his cabinet officers, men whom he 
 had gathered around him for just this purpose, and 
 who knew his full intention. The die was cast, the 
 tide was in motion, either to its ebb or its flow. 
 They were to be the vast gainers or the incalculable 
 losers; either grand dukes, or outcasts fleeing for 
 their lives. 
 
 A sharp wail, as of an animal in sudden torture, 
 burst from the lips of Henry Breed. He started 
 forward, shaking and trembling, the veins on his 
 leathern old face starting out like whipcords. He 
 raised both his clenched fists and opened his mouth 
 to speak, but no words came. 
 
 Speech was supplied on the instant, however, by 
 Sumner Rollins. " By God, no ! " he cried. " I 
 knew that you contemplated some folly, Kelvin, but 
 never that you had in your crazed mind a crime 
 so great as this, or I should either have impeached 
 you as a traitor or had you imprisoned as a lunatic. 
 Hear me, you men ! Let no word of this proclama 
 tion get beyond this room as you value your lives! " 
 
 " Arrest that man ! " shouted Kelvin. 
 
 "Arrest me if you dare!" cried Rollins. "I 
 am going from this room a free man, and I will 
 show you that patriotism and the love of liberty 
 in the United States are neither dead nor asleep. 
 In every village and upon every farm there still
 
 THE LOVE OF A GIRL 333 
 
 dwells the immortal spirit of our forefathers, who 
 fought and died to make the constitution a living, 
 breathing thing; who fought and died to gain 
 liberty, absolute and unimpeachable, for every hu 
 man being who set foot upon this soil ; who fought 
 and died to defend that liberty, and the union which 
 insures it, against foreign invaders and against in 
 ternal dissension. Kelvin, I am going out of here 
 to face you with an army which can defeat any 
 politically made army in the world; an army fight 
 ing for the sacred and undefeatable causes of home 
 and country and freedom. I shall issue such a call 
 that every unvitiated descendant of every true 
 American will answer; a call so loud and so deep 
 and so potent that even those old heroes of Lexing 
 ton and Concord and Bunker Hill, of Bull Run and 
 Shiloh and Gettysburg, will rise from their very 
 graves and swing into line to sweep this colossal 
 folly back into the fourteenth century where it be 
 longs, and to make a byword and a laughing-stock 
 of the name of Phillip Kelvin Emperor!" 
 
 The guards who had advanced toward Rollins 
 had hesitated upon his outburst, and in that mo 
 ment of his righteous fury, standing stern and stal 
 wart with his eyes flashing, he was commanding 
 enough to have halted any underling. Now, how 
 ever, the guards looked to Kelvin, and he struck 
 his knuckles impatiently upon the table. Elsie
 
 334 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 White, upon Kelvin s plunge into his proclamation, 
 had stepped back to the door, where she now 
 stood directly back of Rollins. As the latter 
 spoke she had put her hands behind her and quietly 
 turned the key. Now she plucked Rollins by the 
 sleeve. 
 
 "Hurry! Go!" she whispered. 
 
 She pulled open the door and thrust Rollins 
 through it before he had more than half compre 
 hended her intention, then she slammed it shut, 
 turned the key in the lock, and slipped the key into 
 the neck of her gown, just as the guards and Sam 
 threw themselves upon the door. 
 
 " Miss White, I will give you thirty seconds in 
 which to produce that key," came the cold voice of 
 Kelvin. 
 
 She looked back at him steadily, but made no 
 move. Kelvin drew his watch from his pocket. A 
 tense silence settled in the room. The thirty 
 seconds as they ticked themselves off upon Kelvin s 
 watch seemed an eternity. Finally he slipped his 
 timepiece back into his pocket. 
 
 " Will you give it up? " he demanded. Now his 
 voice was trembling. 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 " Sam, take it." 
 
 The blood that had left Elsie s face suddenly 
 surged up crimson as Sam approached her, but, ex-
 
 THE LOVE OF A GIRL 335 
 
 cept to clasp her hands over her breast she did 
 not move, nor did she take her eyes from Kelvin. 
 He himself turned half nauseated. He had made 
 the threat of Sam, hoping that her horror of the 
 negro would produce the effect he sought, but since 
 it had not, the word of an emperor was out. She 
 shuddered as Sam put his enormous hands upon 
 her, but she defended the key, as best she could 
 with her puny strength. There was a brief strug 
 gle in which the waist of her gown was torn al 
 most its full length, baring her snow-white bosom; 
 and then, with a grin upon his ugly face and a 
 blaze in his eyes that was not good to see, Sam 
 plunged his enormous black hand after the key. 
 The appalled watchers were startled by a shrill 
 laugh of derision from Lillian Breed. Sam sprang 
 from Elsie at once and inserted the key in the 
 lock, though Rollins, by that time, was in his auto 
 mobile and speeding away toward the Maryland line 
 and concealment, unpursued. 
 
 Elsie staggered back a pace against the wall for 
 support, still with those large eyes fixed upon Kel 
 vin. Across the w r idth of the room he gazed into 
 them and saw die there every last lingering trace, 
 from every corner of her heart, of the love and af 
 fection that had for many years been a part of its 
 fiber, and the wrenching out of that affection was 
 more than her frail strength could bear. She sank
 
 336 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 fainting to the floor. Two or three ran to revive 
 her. but Lillian was not among them. 
 
 In the midst of that confusion Henry Breed 
 found his voice. " You sha n t have it! " he cried. 
 " You sha n t have my money. I ll resist to the 
 last ditch. You can t get into the vault. I ll hire 
 a million assassins to kill you. // / was to be 
 emperor! / was to be emperor! " The old man s 
 hands were twitching convulsively at his bald head 
 as if he would snatch out the hair that was not 
 there. His face was scarlet, and there were flecks 
 of foam upon his lips. 
 
 His granddaughter put her hand upon his shoul 
 der. " Never mind, grandfather," she said con 
 temptuously; " remember that it s all in the family." 
 
 She glided up to the desk before Phillip. " My 
 Emperor, I salute you," she said, smiling up at him, 
 and from his desk she picked up the dagger. " Un 
 crowned and unrobed as yet, still I salute you, for 
 you are sceptered, at least. Here it is, your talis 
 man that twice threatened your life. Do you re 
 member how once, holding its point up like this, you 
 declared that in this sign you would conquer? It 
 represented then, as it does now, the tips of ten 
 thousand glittering sword-points, of a million glit 
 tering bayonets. I believed in you then, as I do 
 now, and, declared that I, too, would reign. In this
 
 THE LOVE OE A GIRL 337 
 
 sign we conquer! " and with an hysterical laugh she 
 raised the dagger aloft. 
 
 Kelvin looked down upon her in sudden fury. 
 He had not forgiven her for enticing him to the for- 
 getfulness of his great principle, that to acquire suc 
 cess he must have no entanglements with women; 
 he had not forgiven her his entrapment into a mar 
 riage avowal; he had not forgiven her the death of 
 that love which he had seen die out of Elsie White s 
 eyes; he had not forgiven her that heartless laugh; 
 he could not forgive her this bold and hasty claim 
 before his scarcely established court. 
 
 " For some time to come," said he with quiet sup 
 pression, " I expect to reign alone." 
 
 She looked up at him and read in his eyes the cool 
 first use he meant to make of his absolutism, which 
 was to repudiate her. She read it there, implacable 
 and irrevocable. " Then, your Majesty," she said 
 to him mockingly, " I have only to ask you that you 
 guarantee me safe exit from the palace." 
 
 His face flushed at this first trace of ridicule to 
 be heaped upon his pretensions to royalty, but his 
 voice was grave and even enough as lie strove to es 
 tablish dignity. " You have my word for that," 
 said he. 
 
 " Then," she cried as she sprang back from his 
 desk toward the door that was still open, " I shall
 
 338 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 keep this little souvenir until I have a chance to 
 present it to you again," and she thrust the dagger 
 into her belt. " Do you know what I am going to 
 do ? I am about to turn revolutionist ; I am about 
 to become the Jeanne d Arc of America; I am about 
 to join George Blagg s army and finance it and lead 
 it ! " And with a shrill laugh she swept out of the 
 door. 
 
 There was a moment of paralyzed silence, and 
 then through the corridor they heard her voice, loud 
 and clear and wild, singing The Marseillaise. She 
 swept out through the entrance and down between 
 the ranks of those bronzed mountaineer soldiers. 
 Marching with martial tread, she sang the Song of 
 Blood clear through their ranks; and the people in 
 the streets caught up that exalting chorus, spreading 
 it with incredible swiftness to the confines of the 
 city. The news of its singing flashed along wires 
 and across pulsating, electrified spaces. In every 
 city in the United States that mighty, rousing song 
 was caught up, and the land vibrated with one ac 
 cord to its rhythm and grew wild with its frenzy. 
 In one day America, that had in its infancy dis 
 dained the rule of royalty, that had sworn in every 
 atom of its heart and in every fiber of its body and 
 in every drop of its blood that no monarch should 
 ever sit in authority upon one foot of its soil, had 
 an emperor and its national song had become 
 The Marseillaise!
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 WHEREIN BELLS RING AND WHISTLES BLOW AND 
 EMPEROR KELVIN STARTS ON A JOURNEY 
 
 AT midnight, Phillip the First sat in the ob 
 servation tower he had caused to be built 
 upon the roof of the White House, watch 
 ing, waiting. He remained so perfectly motionless 
 and for so long a time, in the moonlight which swept 
 into the dimness of the small, square room, that 
 one might have thought him asleep, except for the 
 glistening of the high light upon his eyes, which 
 were upturned fixedly to one bright star that hung 
 above the dome of the capitol. Even the sudden 
 harsh clatter of a bell within the apartment did not 
 disturb him from his statue-like rigidity. From a 
 bench at the rear, however, a tall, broad-shouldered 
 figure, which might have been a gigantic shadow 
 from the even blackness of the clothes and the face 
 and hands, rose and picked up the telephone from 
 a little table in the corner. The shadowy figure 
 turned to Kelvin quietly. 
 
 " It s General Rensselaer, suh," he said. " He 
 wants to see yo all on very pawtant business." 
 
 339
 
 340 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " Tell them to let him come up," directed Kelvin 
 without turning his head. 
 
 There seemed a subtle fascination in that star for 
 him. It was the one which, in smiling jest, he had 
 once named as his " star of destiny," and though his 
 reason denied him any superstition, still his fancy 
 grappled firmly upon it, and night after night, when 
 the skies were clear, he gazed on that star and 
 hung upon it all his strategies and all his planning 
 dreams, planning of such scope as to be all but 
 monstrous, day visions so vast that they verged 
 upon absurdity, projects so illimitable as to be al 
 most impious ! 
 
 But why not? He had accomplished in succes 
 sion all his spacious aims until now. From ocean 
 to ocean, for seven days, there had existed a 
 state of tense, taut strain. What violence, what 
 carnage, what hideous saturnalia of bloodshed 
 might break forth at any moment no one knew ; but 
 in the meantime he, Phillip Kelvin, who but a few 
 brief years before had possessed not a dollar and 
 scarce a friend, was still Emperor of America. 
 Emperor! Phillip the First! What vast conquests 
 might yet lie before him ! 
 
 His preparations for handling this present situa 
 tion were excellently laid. In or near every center 
 of population were massed well-drilled soldiers, able
 
 KELVIN STARTS ON A JOURNEY 341 
 
 to combat and to quell any insurrection. There 
 might be a revolt more or less systematized, but it 
 could do very little against the systematic resistance 
 that Kelvin had devised, lie had planned wisely 
 for a reorganization of social conditions, that he 
 knew. He had issued proclamations that, if car 
 ried out, would render this chaos into order, and 
 that most briefly, he was sure. Then, the country 
 once more reorganized upon a self sustaining basis, 
 where every man had an equal chance for suste 
 nance and moderate accumulation, the larger dreams 
 might materialize, the real victories might begin. 
 
 The conquest and annexation of Canada and 
 Mexico would come next, and co-extensive with this 
 the building up of the largest navy in the world. 
 Europe, that vast tissue of states bound by a flimsy 
 figment called " the balance of power," could be dis 
 integrated by a single shot; thrown into a turmoil 
 of cross purposes that would render its individual 
 masses easy prey. With each new victory would 
 come more strength, and his imperial progress might 
 sweep on and on until the entire world, from pole to 
 pole and from Occident to Orient, might be bound 
 together under his resistless sway ; linked in a broth 
 erhood of universal peace and prosperity and equal 
 ity, with himself as the benign dictator! Oh, star 
 of destiny, what say you to that ? The star, a keen
 
 342 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 silver point, beamed down but coldly upon him. 
 There seemed to come a sudden chill in the air, 
 and he shivered slightly. 
 
 Crisply up the steps came Herbert Rensselaer. 
 
 " How ghastly it is up here ! " said he. " Why 
 don t you have some light? " 
 
 " That is a peculiar question for the Commander 
 in Chief of the Imperial army to ask," replied Kel 
 vin with a smile. 
 
 Rensselaer himself smiled. 
 
 " It would make your whereabouts rather con 
 spicuous," he admitted ; " but under the circum 
 stances it might be well to turn on the lights and 
 leave them burning. We shall be away from here 
 in a few minutes." 
 
 " Forest Lakes? " asked Kelvin with quick inter 
 est. " At last ! We should have made that expedi 
 tion a week ago." 
 
 " My organization was not perfect enough," 
 Rensselaer objected. " But we are quite prepared 
 now. At every half mile between here and Breed s, 
 by the time we are moving, there will be stationed a 
 detachment large enough for protection. Each de 
 tachment, as we come up to it, will close in and fol 
 low behind us. The main body is timed to arrive 
 at the gate of Forest Lakes exactly at the time we 
 do, and the following divisions will arrive at the 
 time we are most likely to need reinforcements. I
 
 KELVIN STARTS ON A JOURNEY 343 
 
 wish that it were not necessary to take you there. 
 You should be here where you can direct your cam 
 paign." 
 
 " I don t admire the trip myself," confessed Kel 
 vin, " but outside of Henry Breed and his grand 
 daughter, and possibly Doctor Zelphan, I am the only 
 person in the world who knows the exact location 
 and the combinations of his vault and its billion and 
 a half of cash." He paused for a moment to con 
 template in some inner shame, how and why and 
 when Lillian had given him the secret of those com 
 binations. " The greatest fear I have is that Breed 
 may have changed the combination of his locks." 
 
 " I doubt if he was able to do so," returned Rens- 
 selaer. " He left here, upon the day of your pro 
 clamation, apparently in a state of almost complete 
 paralysis, attended by Doctor Zelphan, my aunt, 
 Jens Nelson and Elsie White." 
 
 Phillip was silent a moment. 
 
 "By Elsie White?" he repeated. "It is queer 
 that she went along." 
 
 Herbert shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Breed always liked her, and when Lillian left 
 with the threat to join George Blagg, Breed turned 
 to Elsie like a child and insisted that she should not 
 leave him." 
 
 Kelvin winced, and a great longing came over 
 him. He too would have liked to have turned to
 
 344 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Elsie White * like a child," but he was for ever too 
 late. His time for that was past. He shook off 
 the feeling of momentary weakness that had come 
 over him, but Rensselaer presently revived it. He, 
 too, was looking out upon the silent city, and the 
 same chill in the air that had seemed to affect Kel 
 vin, came to him so that he drew his military cloak 
 closer about him. 
 
 " Everything seems dead," he suddenly ex 
 claimed. " It is getting on my nerves, this thing of 
 waiting and waiting. Seven days ago, at exactly 
 twelve o clock, noon, George Blagg s army of a mil 
 lion was suddenly to pour out of the ground, from 
 New York to San Francisco and from Duluth to 
 New Orleans, a wild, ferocious horde, that, frothing 
 at the mouth, was to sweep all law and all order be 
 fore it, to grind it into dust, and to leave it but a red 
 memory. We were prepared at that hour. Every 
 regiment of our army stood at arms and ready. 
 For a hundred and eighty hours the army and you 
 and I have been waiting, waiting, waiting, all at that 
 high tension, and nothing has happened. Noth 
 ing!" 
 
 He had scarcely finished speaking when a bell in 
 some steeple near them tolled out a long, strident 
 note; then another; then it began a rapid clanging! 
 A distant factory whistle joined it. Both men 
 sprang to their feet, their hands gripping the
 
 KELVIN STARTS ON A JOURNEY 345 
 
 window-sill, and leaned far out. Another bell, of a 
 sharper tone, and one of a deeper, took up the 
 clamor. Another whistle, two, a dozen, broke in 
 with their deafening noise. It seemed that of a 
 sudden every bell and every whistle in the city had 
 been given frantic life. From the streets there 
 arose, first, separate, individual shouts, then scat 
 tered cheers, then, as they of the under kennel 
 awoke and rushed upon the pavement, a perfect 
 babble of shrill cries. There was something terrific 
 in those voices of the streets. There was in them a 
 note of savage triumph, of lust let free, of all the 
 hatred possible to the human breast, intensified by 
 demoniac fury long pent up, multiplied a hundred 
 thousand fold by numbers. Into the pandemonium 
 of sounds there was suddenly injected a new and 
 more sinister one : the sharp crack of rifles and then 
 measured volley after volley! Shrieks and groans 
 and shrill screams of anguish arose into the mid 
 night air, and battened about the little observatory 
 tower with startling distinctness ; and in each human 
 cry, whether of anger or agony, there was a damn 
 ing accusation of Kelvin, though one that fell on 
 deaf ears so far as pity or remorse was concerned. 
 Kelvin s philanthropy was a cold and an ethical one, 
 and in it there was no capacity for human sympathy 
 with suffering. 
 
 " Well/ said he with a sigh ; " it has come."
 
 346 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Rensselaer s eyes were glistening. 
 
 " I regret to leave it, even for a day," he declared. 
 " This is the moment I have longed for all my life; 
 but Pellman will be able to manage things here. I 
 could not be everywhere, and I have good generals 
 at every station, I know. Think Kelvin, what this 
 means ! If Blagg s threats are right, and this seems 
 to prove them, at this identical moment this same 
 hell has broken loose in every city in the United 
 States." 
 
 The telephone bell behind them rang sharply. 
 Sam was already on his feet, standing poised, a 
 great human beast, all the savagery in him strangely 
 stirring. He sprang to answer the telephone. 
 
 " All right, suh," said he, and turned to Kelvin. 
 " Everything is ready. They ah waiting foh you." 
 
 " Tell them we will be right down," directed 
 Kelvin. 
 
 As they turned to go a roseate glow mounted the 
 sky behind the dome of the capitol. They paused 
 a moment and watched it turn to carmine. 
 
 " Fire ! " announced Kelvin grimly. " I had 
 counted this as a part of the cost, but I hope the de 
 struction may not be great." 
 
 Their eyes rested on a strange scene when they 
 came down to the other door. From the porte- 
 cochere to the carriage gate were solid lines of 
 soldiers upon each side, four deep. Outside in
 
 KELVIN STARTS ON A JOURNEY 347 
 
 the street, the entire block was thronged with men 
 in khaki standing about a hollow square of fourteen 
 automobiles, while at the ends of the block, upon the 
 cross streets, there surged masses of people, frantic 
 and howling, not yet formed into the terrible unity 
 of purpose that was to come. Kelvin stepped into 
 a closed automobile with Rensselaer and Sam and 
 two of his most dependable guards, and with 
 Peavy, ashen gray and protesting, up by the chauf 
 feur. Kelvin had no sooner stepped in than Peavy 
 jumped from his place and ran back under the 
 porte-cochere. 
 
 " Indeed Ah cain go, Mistah Kelvin," Peavy de 
 clared, listening with terror to the vengeful voice of 
 the mob. " Ah ain well." 
 
 Sam immediately jumped out after him. 
 
 " Git back in yo place ! " he commanded. 
 
 " Now yo all go way from me, Sam ! " cried 
 Peavy. " Ah ain got no time to projec roun wid 
 yo ! Ah ain well, Ah tells you ! " 
 
 " Sit back on yo place ! " repeated Sam. 
 
 " I suah cain do it," protested Peavy. " Mali 
 God, man, Ah ain well, Ah tells yo ! Ah m scaihed 
 sick!" 
 
 The sharp voice of Kelvin came from the auto 
 mobile. 
 
 " Leave him there, Sam. We don t want him. 
 He will be worse than useless to us."
 
 348 .THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " All right, suh, Ah ll leave him heah, then. Jes 
 one minute." 
 
 There was the wail as of a lost soul from Peavy, 
 as Sam suddenly sprang upon him, and, gripping his 
 powerful fingers around Peavy s neck, bore him to 
 the floor. He knelt over him for just a moment 
 while Peavy s legs struggled convulsively. Then he 
 gave a sudden jerking pressure of all his weight 
 to those gigantic hands, arose and jumped up 
 by the chauffeur; and Peavy lay still where Sam 
 had left him. 
 
 Kelvin uttered no word of protest to Sam, but 
 he turned to Herbert with a return of that chill feel 
 ing which had twice before oppressed him this night. 
 
 " A bad omen," he said. 
 
 Herbert laughed lightly. 
 
 " There will be a thousand bad omens before we 
 are through with this," he predicted ; " but I think 
 that even Peavy would have been safe in this flying 
 wedge of ours." 
 
 The automobile rolled out into the street and took 
 its place in the center of the hollow square. Both 
 before and behind it were six automobiles, three 
 abreast, and one was upon each side. Each of 
 these was a seven passenger car, and in the tonneau 
 of each rested, upon a tripod, its sweep above the 
 head of the chauffeur, a cylinder of shining brass; 
 behind each cylinder stood a stalwart soldier in
 
 KELVIN STARTS ON A JOURNEY 349 
 
 khaki, and two others sat upon the seat ; each soldier 
 was further accoutered with rifles and small arms, 
 and thus, surrounded by fourteen Gattling guns and 
 spare men to man them, the fifteenth automobile, 
 which contained Kelvin, took command of the ex 
 pedition. There was a shrill whistle from Rensse- 
 laer, the soldiers fell away from before the machines 
 like chaff, and the strange battery sprang forward. 
 Upon the cross street at the end of the block the 
 people quickly gave \vay, but out from an intersect 
 ing avenue two blocks beyond, a fanatical mob, 
 shouting and cursing, turned and bore straight to 
 ward them. Guns could be seen on shoulders, and 
 torches, already the sign and signal of lawlessness, 
 as they had been in a thousand uprisings since the 
 centuries began, were flaunted. From the forward 
 automobile there came a sharp crackling, a succes 
 sion of staccato snaps like the ripping of shingles 
 from a roof. The running mob stopped, it fell 
 back, it scattered like chaff, and in an instant more 
 the autos, keeping evenly abreast, bumped and 
 jerked over a pavement strewn with sickeningly 
 soft impediments. Wherever a throng in the dis 
 tance seemed about to bar the way, one of the Gat- 
 tlings snapped out a rolling word of warning. A 
 few went down, but when the automobiles reached 
 the spot there was not a soul to offer them hindrance 
 nor to reach with an accidental shot the sacred body
 
 350 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 of the Emperor. So, through the city and out into 
 the country they swept, to roads where they could 
 go but two abreast and sometimes but single file; 
 but always Kelvin was in the center, and never was 
 there any interference. A half mile northeast of 
 the city the headlights flared on a detachment in 
 unmistakable khaki on both sides of the road, and 
 these saluted as the imperial escort swept by, and 
 cheered, and closing in behind marched at double 
 quick.
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 LILLIAN BREED IS IN HER NATURAL ELEMENT 
 AT LAST. 
 
 IN a thousand gory spots the beasts of hate were 
 loosed at once, and the places in which they 
 chose to glut their rage were the cities; the 
 cities, where vice had congested, where crime had 
 sought and found its fellows, where poverty had 
 festered, where a deadly miasmatic blight had settled 
 upon all life, all thought, all social intercourse. 
 The ringing of that first deep-toned knell in Wash 
 ington had been simultaneous with the clang of the 
 same grim death watch from east to west and from 
 north to south. George Blagg s own hand had 
 pressed the wireless key which had sent the message 
 flashing in every direction across startled space. 
 Eager fanatics had received it, and wherever it was 
 transmitted there came almost the instantaneous 
 pealing of bells from church and fire and school 
 towers, and the answering shriek of factory 
 whistles ; then the voices of the frantic horde and the 
 volleys of guns and the shrieks of the wounded and 
 the reddening of night skies. In every city large 
 
 351
 
 352 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 enough to have fostered these unnatural districts, 
 out from tenements \vhere the sustenance of life 
 was a matter of crusts and luxury was spelled by a 
 pail of beer, swarmed an ill-clad, unkempt, under 
 fed horde to avenge the follies of society upon itself. 
 The horror of it was that they did not attack the 
 soldiery direct, as Blagg had planned, but the better 
 nourished citizens ; for Blagg s original secret organ 
 ization, bound together with some idea of order, 
 with some sense of philanthropic motive, with some 
 plan of warfare against the " Imperial Army," was 
 now augmented by a wild, disordered herd of the 
 criminally inclined, who, seeing that law and order 
 were swept away, turned to mad license. 
 
 Out into the residence districts they swept in 
 packs, like starving wolves, their faces contorted to 
 devilish caricatures of the Supreme Likeness, and 
 sickening scenes of horror ensued. Wherever a 
 proud home reared itself, a monument to the in 
 dustry or the wit or the greed of some man, there 
 were murder and pillage and rapine, all ending in 
 the torch; and when the mob swept on it left behind 
 it but a leaping blaze to light its way. The au 
 thorities were worse than powerless. As fast as 
 a fresh center of disturbance was reported and a 
 detachment sent there to quell it, the horror broke 
 out anew in some other, distant field ; and with 
 sickening regularity, police or soldiers arrived only
 
 LILLIAN IN HER ELEMENT 353 
 
 in time to find the mob dispersed to regather at some 
 other gluttonous feast, and a hopeless fire in prog 
 ress. An all seeing eye, sweeping that night across 
 the North American continent, would have found 
 the land reddened by these many pyres, which 
 lighted a redness still more terrible, for not only 
 men and women were put to death in this maniacal 
 orgie of reprisal, but little children were slaugh 
 tered as they ran shrieking from warm beds, 
 and with oaths tossed into the fire by blackened 
 faced monsters after the work of destruction had 
 been completed. No night in all the history of the 
 world had paralleled this; no blood lust was ever 
 so hideously satiated ; no carnage was ever so wide 
 spread, for this one smeared a continent with blood. 
 While this raving debauchery took place over the 
 length of the land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific 
 and from the Lakes to the Gulf, three separate con 
 courses crept, under cover of the night, one from 
 the north and one from the south and one from the 
 east, convergent upon Forest Lakes, where the prize 
 coveted of each army, Breed s billion and a half 
 dollars in solid cash, lay hidden beneath the library 
 cellar. The first of these concourses, the one from 
 the north, had crept silently forward all night long. 
 Many of its members had marched now for five suc 
 cessive nights, sleeping in the barns of friendly 
 farmers by day, and arising the next night with one
 
 354 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 or more recruits. They had avoided the villages, 
 taking the least detours around them that they 
 might; but ahead of them, to each village, they had 
 sent one of their number, and when he rejoined 
 them on the other side there marched behind him a 
 goodly company. These bore no trace of uniform, 
 but each man carried over his shoulder his rifle or 
 his shot-gun. Some had belts for ammunition and 
 others carried their pockets full. They were grim, 
 stern men, sane human beings of the country dis 
 tricts, who had not been caught in the maelstrom 
 of the social upheaval, men who had happily dwelt 
 out of its fevered circles, men whose eyes and whose 
 minds were clear to see the right and the wrong of 
 things, and to know the great Justice that broods 
 over all. They came on steadily and firmly, and 
 their ranks constantly grew. As each detachment 
 joined them a stern voice called: "Halt! Who 
 comes ? " and then into a listening ear was whispered 
 by each new adherent of the ranks, " Liberty and 
 the Republic!" 
 
 Nearer, upon the road from the east, a far 
 different army, like a giant, nervous snake, came 
 jerking along tlte dark road at much greater 
 speed. It was composed of undersized men, for 
 the most part, ranging from bloated- faced and blear- 
 eyed youths to bloated- faced and blear-eyed middle
 
 LILLIAN IN HER ELEMENT 355 
 
 age, and there were bedraggled women, far more 
 fiendish of visage than the men. They danced, 
 many of them, as they marched, and always they 
 sang; sang the blood-maddening song of The Mar 
 seillaise, sang it in cracked and jangling tones, 
 with throats that were hoarse from shrieking and 
 voices that were husky from dissipation ; and never, 
 even in the days when the tricolor received its bap 
 tism of blood, was The Marseillaise a more terrible 
 song than on this night. Many of the singers car 
 ried torches, made from whatever inflammable sub 
 stances they could find upon the way, and replenished 
 as often as burned out. They made no detours, but 
 swept past farm-houses and through villages in 
 brazen insolence, and their passing was like a 
 scourge, especially in the villages, where they broke 
 open bakeries and meat shops, groceries and saloons, 
 gorging themselves with what they wanted and 
 wasting what they did not, offsetting expostulation 
 with blows and resistance with murder, and passing 
 on with ribald uproar that could have been equaled 
 only by the din of the damned. Men in their beds 
 heard and paled, and women and children whim 
 pered in fear ; and woe betide any who came in their 
 path ; for by and by they maimed and killed in mere 
 wanton sport. They were drunk with the carnage 
 that was to come, drunk with the license that was
 
 356 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 to be theirs, drunk with the loosing of all their 
 most evil passions; and they that rode at their head 
 were drunker than any of them. 
 
 In a carriage drawn by two gray horses taken by 
 force from a bewildered farmer, there rode tall, 
 gaunt George Blagg, and by his side sat Lillian 
 Breed, her gown, once a rich creation of red silk, 
 soiled and tattered, the jaunty hat she had once 
 worn replaced by a gay colored silk kerchief that she 
 had knotted about her black hair; under her eyes 
 were dark rings, but the eyes themselves gleamed 
 with an excitement that was demoniacal, and her 
 cheeks were aflame with an unnatural fire. Beau 
 tiful even in her dishevelment, she was the incarna 
 tion of the riotous spirit that had maddened all their 
 following, and she it was, who, when any period of 
 silence fell for a moment upon the twisting serpent 
 of humanity behind her, raised her voice in the wild 
 song of The Marseillaise. Each time, as that hymn 
 of destruction was caught up by those directly about 
 her and swept back along the trailing concourse to 
 its unseen wake, she would laugh aloud in hysterical 
 glee, and, sinking once more beside her consort, 
 would clasp him in a wild embrace and shower mad 
 kisses upon him, kisses which he returned with her 
 own tigerish gusto; and those that danced ahead 
 of the carriage and around it set up shouts of 
 approval.
 
 LILLIAN IN HER ELEMENT 357 
 
 Nearer still, upon the road from the south, but 
 waiting, there bivouacked a grim company in khaki, 
 men who rested upon a hillside with their guns close 
 by them in orderly formation, ready on the word 
 to spring to their feet at attention. In the road, 
 silent sentries patrolled. Farther back, a half mile, 
 a smaller detachment bivouacked; at a half mile 
 farther, still another, and so clear to Washington. 
 These, too, were men of the city type, but they were 
 the more stalwart ones, the ones who had best sur 
 vived bad air and ill nourishment and ill condition. 
 They were the sturdier class of the unemployed 
 workmen. 
 
 And so these three sorts of humanity centered 
 toward Forest Lakes; the virile workmen of the 
 cities; the rat-like undermen; the grim and stern 
 stalwarts of the farms and villages they in whom 
 still lived the spirit of the constitution, of the revolu 
 tion, of the union!
 
 CHAPTER XXX 
 
 DOCTOR ZELPHAN DECIDES TO DIE CROUCHING AND 
 ROLLINS TAKES A KISS IN THE DARK 
 
 THROUGH the dark woods at Forest Lakes 
 there came hurrying, from the northern 
 boundary of the estate, an active figure 
 which, avoiding the center of the drives where the 
 starlight might reveal him, kept in the shadows of 
 the trees ; yet, when it became necessary to traverse 
 open spaces, he crossed them boldly, making his way 
 steadily toward the big gray stone house. Occa 
 sionally, in the denser shadows, he stopped to listen. 
 On the clear night air his quick ears seemed to catch 
 a sound like a distant murmur of human voices, and 
 yet, when he paused, either the vagaries of the wind 
 swept that distant sound away, or his strained 
 imagination had deceived him. 
 
 He had wondered somewhat that no guard had 
 stopped him. He knew that Kelvin, before he had 
 proclaimed himself Emperor, had taken away 
 with him Breed s five hundred picked mountaineers, 
 but he knew also that a dozen or so of them had 
 been left, flint-like men who would much rather 
 
 358
 
 A KISS IN THE DARK 359 
 
 shoot first and inquire afterward in these troubled 
 times. He was congratulating himself upon his 
 good fortune in escaping these men, when, as he 
 rounded the corner of the house, two of them, at the 
 front door in the shadow of the porch, stepped for 
 ward with leveled guns. 
 
 " Throw up your hands ! Come in the light ! " 
 commanded the one nearest him, and flashed the 
 glow of an electric pocket lantern in his direction. 
 
 The new-comer did as he was bidden and walked 
 directly toward the bull s-eye. 
 
 " Stop ! " ordered the spokesman. He held the 
 glow steadily upon the new-comer s face. " Looks 
 a little like the description," said he to the other 
 guard. 
 
 " Uh-huh," drawled the other reluctantly. 
 
 " Are you Sumner Rollins ? " asked the spokes 
 man. 
 
 " Yes," replied Rollins relieved, and began to 
 lower his hands. 
 
 " Hold up your hands ! Wait a minute ! " 
 
 Rollins instantly raised his hands again, feeling 
 rather ridiculous, while the guard stepped to the 
 door and rang the bell. He had no more than rung 
 it when the door opened, and Elsie White stood re 
 vealed in the flood of light. 
 
 " Come in, Mr. Rollins," she cheerily invited. 
 " I have been waiting for you these three nights."
 
 360 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " Waiting for me ! " he exclaimed, as he strode 
 up and took both her hands in his own. " I don t 
 see how that could be. I have been trying for a 
 week to get word to you, but could find no way. I 
 knew that with the telegraph control in the hands 
 of Blagg no message was safe. How did you find 
 out that I was coming? " 
 
 " I don t know," replied Elsie, dropping her eyes 
 as she gently disengaged her hands and closed the 
 door. " I just seemed to know it. I felt so sure 
 of it that I gave all the outside men orders to watch 
 for you. You see," and now she looked up at him 
 frankly, " I knew that you were aware of our dan- 
 ger." 
 
 The light of joy leaped into his eyes. Once more 
 he caught at her hands, and she blushed as she drew 
 them behind her. 
 
 " They are waiting for you," she said. " I think 
 that the danger is growing very near. There are 
 armed soldiers just about a mile south of the gate. * 
 
 " I thought I heard a murmur of voices as I came 
 through the woods from the north," said Rollins, 
 puzzled again, " but the sound seemed to come from 
 the east, and it seemed to me, too, that an orderly 
 night march of disciplined men would not betray 
 itself in that way." 
 
 Elsie had opened the door of the library, and the 
 tableau that met Rollins gaze was so startling that
 
 A KISS IN THE DARK 361 
 
 he stopped transfixed. Behind the long library 
 table at the far end of the room, in a high-backed 
 chair sat old Henry Breed, the richly jeweled crown 
 upon his jerkily nodding head, the robe of ermine 
 and carmine upon his emaciated form, the diamond 
 tipped scepter in his hand. At one end of the table 
 sat Jens Nelson, looking particularly boyish with his 
 straw-colored hair and his straw-colored eyebrows 
 and his round pink face, and at the other end Doctor 
 Zelphan, peering through his thick spectacles at Rol 
 lins and grinning through his bushy red beard, while 
 Mrs. Rensselaer, as composed as if at the reception 
 of a social rival, sat aloof in a corner, thinking her 
 own thoughts. 
 
 " Welcome to our court ! " cackled Breed. 
 " Welcome to our court ! What plenipotentiary have 
 we here? " and his head nodded so violently that the 
 heavy crown jerked off and fell upon the table. 
 
 Doctor Zelphan calmly caught it as it was about to 
 roll to the floor, carefully pushed out a dent that 
 had been made in the soft gold, and restored the 
 crown to Breed, who, after many bobbing at 
 tempts, placed it again upon his head. 
 
 " I shall examine the envoy s credentials and pre 
 sent him to your majesty in due time and form," 
 sonorously announced Zelphan, with an evident 
 enjoyment of the mockery that Rollins, in 
 his shocked abhorrence, could not understand.
 
 362 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " Quite right," agreed Breed. " Quite right. 
 Let all things be done in due form," and, apparently 
 resolved not to interfere with proper observances, 
 Breed drew his old, well-worn Bible to him, opened 
 it, and, though his eyes were too dim to see the 
 words, bent over the pages and began to mumble 
 to himself garbled quotations, of which vengeance 
 was the chief burden. 
 
 " I am the Prime Minister," Zelphan stated with 
 burlesque gravity, arising and shaking hands with 
 Rollins. " Our friend Jens, here, is the Lord High 
 Chamberlain. Mrs. Rensselaer is the First Lady in 
 Waiting. If you behave yourself, Rollins, we ll 
 make you a Duke or an Earl or something. Pick 
 out your title. Anything you please." 
 
 Rollins smiled thinly, but he could not take his 
 eyes nor his mind from the appalling wreck of 
 Henry Breed, the richest man the world had ever 
 known, or perhaps ever would know, the man who, 
 starting without a dollar, had, in the course of an 
 ordinary lifetime, compassed half the wealth of a 
 nation to his own use, and through that half con 
 trolled the balance of it. And he was come to this 
 end ! 
 
 Nelson roused Rollins to immediate business. 
 
 " What is the news ? " he asked abruptly. 
 
 Rollins turned to him with relief.
 
 A KISS IN THE DARK 363 
 
 " I have a force of more than fifteen hundred 
 good, solid men who will be here inside of half an 
 hour, to protect the vaults. I am quite sure that 
 an attack will be made upon them to-night. I have 
 been collecting my forces for a week against this 
 moment, and watching Kelvin through the spy of 
 whom you told me. When they got the Gattlings 
 into the garage to-day, I knew the time was growing 
 very short. We made a forced march to-night, 
 making a straight cut to get here. Had we gone a 
 trifle out of our road we could have had three more 
 detachments with us, but we would have lost two 
 or three hours. We might not have been here until 
 daylight." 
 
 " They have Gattlings, you say ? " asked Nelson, 
 troubled. 
 
 " Fourteen of them, from the government ar 
 senal, mounted in automobiles. If my men get here 
 in time I want to ambush the expedition from be 
 hind the wall, and have my sharpshooters puncture 
 their tires and pick off their gunners. If I can 
 deploy half a mile of my squirrel hunters along the 
 road, the automobiles can not go so fast but that 
 we can stop every one of them, and disarm them. 
 Kelvin is to be among them. If we can capture him 
 the whole problem is solved." 
 
 " But they have Gattlings," protested Nelson.
 
 364 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 " We have ambush and strategy," insisted Rollins 
 confidently. "If only my forces can arrive in 
 time!" 
 
 " You have done wonders," said Nelson admir 
 ingly. "How have you managed it? I thought 
 we were helpless." 
 
 Rollins shrugged his shoulders. 
 
 " Kelvin had one enemy he could not throttle, and 
 that was the American press, which, after all, is the 
 staunch foundation upon which our liberty has been 
 founded and upheld. Upon the instant of his proc 
 lamation Kelvin had a censor ready to take osten 
 sible charge of every newspaper office in the United 
 States. He might as well have put infants there. 
 In some cases the censors were intimidated, in 
 others they were hoodwinked, in others they were 
 bound and gagged, and in some places killed. The 
 papers, the majority of them, came out with pre 
 cisely the things any good American would expect 
 them to say under the circumstances. The soldiers 
 were kept busy confiscating papers and closing up 
 newspaper plants, but as fast as they closed one, 
 the paper was issued from some other source, on 
 borrowed presses and in borrowed offices. Several 
 papers that ostensibly obeyed Kelvin s proclamation 
 and issued censored journals thoroughly acceptable 
 to him, were at the same time printing the incen 
 diary organs of their rivals for them, and aiding in
 
 A KISS IN THE DARK 365 
 
 their distribution. The eastern newspapers, on 
 the very first day, issued my call to arms, and, 
 though the telegraph was closed to us, within two 
 days the appeal was being printed in Chicago and 
 St. Louis, spreading farther west every day since 
 the proclamation. In every village and every coun 
 try settlement men are arming; the sort of men who 
 always respond to the call of patriotism, the sort of 
 men who know when their country and their homes 
 are in danger, and who are willing to die to defend 
 them. Nelson, you can t whip men like that! So 
 long as they exist in this country it will be, without 
 jingoism, but in glorious fact, the home of the 
 brave and the land of the free! " 
 
 Zelphan, whose whole bearing until now had been 
 like the flippancy of an overgrown, mischievous 
 school-boy, smiled and nodded his head approvingly. 
 
 "It is the existence of such men as these fol 
 lowers of yours, and yourself, Rollins, that recon 
 ciles me to America," he admitted. " I have 
 damned you as a whole more than once, as being a 
 race of people who are plunging themselves into 
 nerve bankruptcy; but after all, there is something 
 in the fundamentals of this country different from 
 any other nation ; there is a healthiness in the body 
 politic which, if nature be given a chance, can throw 
 off all its cancers. America needs just some such 
 eruption as this to clear her blood and let the healthy
 
 366 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 molecules like you and Nelson here get to work. 
 I m very fond of Nelson since I have come to know 
 him," and the doctor dropped a broad red hand 
 upon Nelson s shoulder, whereat Nelson s face as 
 sumed a stony stare in which there was no apparent 
 gleam of intelligence. " Nelson was fortunate 
 enough to earn the scholarship grade entitling him 
 to be supported by Breed through his college career, 
 and in the end passed such examinations that he 
 was given immediate employment in Mr. Breed s 
 own service. By all this Nelson conceived himself 
 bound in simple loyalty! Strange, isn t it?" 
 
 " I know," nodded Rollins with appreciation, and 
 with a kindly glance at Jens. " Breed gave him 
 to me for my secretary and he was a spy on all my 
 acts." 
 
 " He was more than that," went on the doctor, 
 laughing, and still regarding Nelson with a curious 
 smile. " He was passed on to Kelvin when Phillip 
 the First became president, and when Jens found 
 that Kelvin actually meant to declare himself em 
 peror, to the exclusion of Breed and everybody else, 
 he set up a system of spies of his own, and helped 
 Blagg place the bombs that were intended to blow: 
 Kelvin out of his throne! All this, mind you, in 
 spite of the fact that he does not quite approve of 
 everything that has been done by our royal friend
 
 A KISS IN THE DARK 367 
 
 back here, and that he does not believe any one man 
 should control so much cash." 
 
 "Cash!" suddenly broke in the shrill voice of 
 Breed, and the crown bumped from his glistening 
 bald head upon the table in front of him and rolled 
 to the floor. "Cash!" and his wrinkled old face 
 weazened into an expression of desperate intentness. 
 " The greatest force in all the world ! The power 
 that can totter thrones and disrupt governments; 
 that can cause wars and support them and end them ; 
 that can build cities and devastate them! Cash! 
 The life blood of commerce! The great social 
 dynamo! The golden lever of Archimedes! 
 Cash ! " His voice rose in a shrill crescendo, but 
 before its quaverings had ceased there came another 
 sound much more startling the unmistakable, 
 never-to-be- forgotten Marseillaise ! 
 
 It was not musical, that song, with its untuned 
 voices and its melody all awry, but there was an ex- 
 ulant insistence upon the measured rhythm that 
 arrested instant attention. There seemed, as it 
 approached, as gusts of wind made it more sharply 
 audible, as it mounted in volume, a demoniacal fury 
 in it. 
 
 Every blind, including the heavy curtains behind 
 the glass at the doors, had been drawn. Now Nel 
 son suddenly snapped a button that threw the library
 
 368 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 in darkness, and going to one of the windows that 
 gave upon the front driveway, opened a blind. 
 The red flare of torches could be seen between the 
 trees. There came a loud cheer, impregnated with 
 the same fury as the song, and then the blows of 
 rails and logs upon the heavy iron gates, a fusillade 
 of shots from the rifles of the guards, screams of 
 agony and answering shots. 
 
 " Too late ! " groaned Rollins. " It is not Kel 
 vin s army but Blagg s. God help us ! " 
 
 A piercing scream, as if it might have been that 
 of a cat in mortal anguish, came from the end of 
 the room where Henry Breed sat alone nodding his 
 head and mumbling and mowing in his pitiful 
 pomp. 
 
 " Cash ! " he shrilled. " My cash ! " 
 
 There was a metallic crash and another mad cheer. 
 The gates had given way, and then they came pour 
 ing in. The high pitched voice of a woman sud 
 denly broke again into the frenzied song of The 
 Marseillaise, and a shouting chorus, out of all sem 
 blance of tune but with wonderful rhythm, caught it 
 up. A torch darted into the open around the far 
 bend. Rollins, who was unconsciously reaching 
 back for his pistol, found his fingers caught in a 
 soft hand, and felt a gentle pull. He obeyed the 
 tugging immediately and allowed himself to be led. 
 Outside the door, in the dim light of the hall, Elsie
 
 A KISS IN THE DARK 369 
 
 White, still leading the way toward the rear of the 
 building, looked up at him with terror-widened eyes. 
 
 " This way," she urged. " I must hide you." 
 
 " My men ! " he protested. " They should be ap 
 proaching the grounds by this time, and now I must 
 lead them by a different way." 
 
 " Don t go! " she begged of him. " If they see 
 you crossing the open spaces they will chase you and 
 shoot you as they would a wild animal." 
 
 " I can not help it," he answered calmly. " I 
 must go." 
 
 He raced on through to the kitchen hall, but he 
 did not let go of her hand ; and now it was he who 
 led. He reached the rear door and threw it open. 
 
 " Come," he said simply. 
 
 She looked up at him a moment and then gently 
 stepped out beside him, closing the door after her. 
 He paused for a moment, with sudden mastery, to 
 gather her in his arms, and for just that moment 
 she laid her head in surrender upon his shoulder. 
 She knew now that her dreams of Kelvin had been 
 but the outcome of a youthful ideal; an ideal which 
 had made her see Phillip through distorted eyes, 
 which had clouded her vision to this sterling love, 
 which had nearly wrecked her happiness for life. 
 But now, thank God, it was over, and her own pure 
 heart was come into the keeping of one worthy 
 of that priceless gift. Rollins lifted her head
 
 370 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 gently, stooped down and kissed her full upon the 
 warm red lips, and then he took her hand again. 
 
 " It looks like desertion," said he, " but we can do 
 no good here." 
 
 He struck out with her along the path, but she 
 pulled against his direction. 
 
 "This way," she insisted; "straight back from 
 the house to the garden and around past the ken 
 nels. Then we can be under cover all the way." 
 
 He looked down at her critically. Fortunately 
 her dress was dark. They raced away into the 
 shelter of the dark shrubbery, a path that he would 
 not have dared to choose in his haste; but Elsie, 
 who was familiar with every foot of the ground, 
 bent her head and guided him by many turns and 
 twists into a screen of impenetrable blackness. 
 
 In the meantime, in the library, the voice of 
 Jens Nelson, cool and collected, inquired : 
 
 " How shall we prepare to die ? Standing or 
 crouching? " 
 
 He drew down the blind, and, making his way to 
 the other side of the room, once more turned the 
 switch button. 
 
 Doctor Zelphan, standing where he had been, 
 looked swiftly about the room. They two were the 
 only occupants. 
 
 " It seems," he said with a short laugh, " that the 
 others have already made their choice. The ma-
 
 A KISS IN THE DARK 371 
 
 jority rules, and I shall follow. Only the young 
 insist upon dying gaudily. For myself, I have still 
 to finish my book." 
 
 He had moved rapidly across the room to the hall 
 door as he spoke. The menacing song of The Mar 
 seillaise, now but a roaring series of accented shouts, 
 was quite near. Two sharp, resounding shots 
 echoed just outside the hall door. 
 
 " The guards ! " exclaimed Zelphan. " They are 
 still at the door. There is a part of your America, 
 the part that I love. What wonderful material for 
 my book. Come! If we must die let us die 
 crouching/ and without waiting he raced up the 
 stairs, heading toward the attic. 
 
 Nelson hesitated a moment. Two more shots 
 rang out, followed by howls of hate, and then a 
 fusillade of bullets spattered against the walls, 
 crashed through the glass, and imbedded themselves 
 with soft thuds into the heavy woodwork of the 
 doors. Nelson hesitated no longer but followed the 
 doctor.
 
 CHAPTER XXXI 
 
 LILLIAN TAKES POSSESSION OF HER INHERITANCE 
 
 THE doors offered but a brief resistance, 
 after the two guards had been beaten down 
 and torn and snarled over, and then the 
 dust-blackened mob came bursting in, at their head 
 Lillian Breed, the incarnation of wild atavic gypsy- 
 hood, the incarnation of hell-apprenticed beauty, 
 the incarnation of all the evil things that are red, 
 her cheeks aflame to vie with the carmine of the 
 knotted kerchief in her black hair, her ruby-tinted 
 gown slashed and ribboned and frayed, and one 
 rounded bare arm, upon which was a slight flesh 
 wound and a trickle of shining crimson, hanging 
 entirely without the torn sleeve. Her eyes were 
 flaming and her scarlet lips were parted in a mock 
 ing laugh. 
 
 "Welcome to our home!" she cried, half turn 
 ing to the rabble and throwing her right arm aloft, 
 the bare one with the red streak upon it, and, 
 thrusting her left arm beneath that of Blagg, she 
 wheeled with him into the library, while their fol- 
 
 372
 
 LILLIAN TAKES POSSESSION 373 
 
 lowers poured after them like a foul flood through 
 out the house. 
 
 There was an almost instant breaking of china 
 and rending of draperies, with the shrill laughter 
 of mad women above all, sounds of vandal devasta 
 tion and destruction at which Lillian only laughed 
 aloud. 
 
 " Help yourselves, my good friends," she shouted. 
 " The house is yours and all that it contains, even 
 to its unwelcoming hosts, if you find them." 
 
 No fiend could have laughed more evilly than she. 
 In the library Blagg jumped upon the very table 
 which Breed had so lately quitted, and clapped his 
 hands for silence. 
 
 " Order there ! " he shouted, and stamped heavily 
 with his nail-studded heel upon the polished ma 
 hogany of the table top. 
 
 "Who orders order?" roared a half drunken 
 tinner, who had already secured a decanter from 
 the dining-room and now crowded into the door. 
 His face was blackened with powder smoke; over 
 his left eye there was a broad patch of darkened dry 
 blood; his thick lips were parted in a ribald grin. 
 He raised the decanter to his lips and took a long 
 pull of the liquor. "Who orders order?" he re 
 peated, shoving his way forward into the room. 
 "Orders are for slaves! I defy orders! To hell 
 with orders ! "
 
 374 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 A lean little man with eyes as sharp as steel 
 needles and with a pointed nose and a pointed chin 
 and curiously overhanging brow, and long, thin 
 arms, suddenly whipped a knife from his belt and 
 stabbed the tinner in the throat. He fell without a 
 groan. Those around him only laughed, but order 
 was obtained. 
 
 " This is business, in the name of liberty and 
 equality ! " commanded Blagg. " Hold yourselves 
 in restraint. Remember that we came here to get a 
 billion and a half of dollars for the cause. Every 
 one of you must help us to carry it from here, and 
 remember that we have all sworn to kill the first 
 man who tries to make away with any of it or to ap 
 propriate a dollar to his own uses. After we have 
 established equality and fraternity, then every man 
 may do as he likes, but to-night we must act for the 
 common weal. Come forward as your names are 
 called. Meyers ! " The lean little man who had 
 stabbed the tinner pressed forward to the table. 
 " Trellis ! " A stoop-shouldered man with a 
 dished-in face joined Meyers. " White ! " The 
 father of Elsie White, gray and fat and with the 
 light of foolish zealotry in his eyes pushed eagerly 
 to the front. " Oilman ! Owens ! Hibbard ! 
 Schultz ! Garvin ! Boyer ! " 
 
 They came to him as he called until he had named 
 a score of names.
 
 LILLIAN TAKES POSSESSION 375 
 
 " That is all for now," he directed. " The rest 
 of you wait here in your detachments of tens until 
 you are called from below." 
 
 Lillian had stood at the side of the fireplace, her 
 hand upon the knob of the little door which led into 
 her grandfather s retiring room. Now Blagg 
 jumped down from the table to her side, and to 
 gether they threw open the door. Lillian broke out, 
 instantly, into a shrill laugh. 
 
 " Why, look who s here ! " she cried. " If it isn t 
 my dear old friend, Mrs. Rensselaer." 
 
 Mrs. Rensselaer stepped back from her vain at 
 tempts to bolt the door, and, with her hand resting 
 easily upon the foot of Breed s couch, looked quietly 
 at Lillian, waiting. With her gray hair and her 
 neat gown and her calm dignity she overawed Lil 
 lian for a moment, and then anger came as a nat 
 ural reaction. 
 
 "Why, how delightful! " said Lillian with mock 
 suavity. " Mrs. Rensselaer, you must come out and 
 let me introduce you to some of my friends. 
 Ladies ! " she called. " I am going to turn Mrs. 
 Rensselaer over to the reception committee." 
 
 The women, hideous travesties of their sex in all 
 their grim frowsiness and excitement, grinned and 
 pressed forward. 
 
 " This is Mrs. Rensselaer," continued Lillian, 
 dragging forth her many years companion. " She
 
 3 ;6 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 is the last lady of one of our very, very oldest fam 
 ilies. None of her ancestry has worked since 
 America was a nation. Her nephew is General 
 Rensselaer, who is commander-in-chief of the army 
 of Emperor Kelvin, Phillip the First ! I know you 
 will enjoy her society." 
 
 Her mocking laugh seemed enough hint as she 
 thrust Mrs. Rensselaer into the library. A brazen 
 woman, fat and gross, and with hideous lips burned 
 dark as with a fever, caught Mrs. Rensselaer by the 
 hand and jerked her forward. A mere slip of a 
 girl, thin and formless, but whose face already bore 
 the unmistakable traces of living death, laughed a 
 shrill laugh, and, with a soiled cap that had once 
 been a boy s, slapped Mrs. Rensselaer across the 
 face. 
 
 Flushing red with the indignity, Mrs. Rensselaer 
 turned to Lillian, but she had neither time to pro 
 test nor need of it, for Lillian, obeying another of 
 the sudden tigerish impulses to which in the past 
 week she had wholly given herself, changed her 
 attitude completely and with blazing eyes rushed 
 between Mrs. Rensselaer and her tormentors. 
 
 " That will do ! " she cried. " Mrs. Rensselaer 
 was my friend for a great many years and treated 
 me more patiently than I deserved. She is my 
 guest now and must be respected as such. Mrs. 
 Rensselaer, sit here," and she seated her one-time
 
 (LILLIAN TAKES POSSESSION 377 
 
 social tutor and sponsor behind the library table, in 
 the chair that Breed had lately vacated. " Whit 
 ney! Caspar! Williams! Harvey! Perth! Green! 
 Stand around this table and protect her from any 
 further insults, in my name ! As for you," and she 
 turned to the young woman who had slapped Mrs. 
 Rensselaer. Her eyes narrowed and grew cold as 
 she confronted the girl. She walked closer to her, 
 gazing steadily and cruelly into the pale gray eyes 
 that now widened with consternation. Suddenly 
 giving way to her unbridled whim she picked out 
 two of the other men and pushed the girl with sud 
 den violence into their arms. 
 
 " Take her out and throw her in the lake," she 
 directed. 
 
 The men, laughing cruelly, seized hold of her and 
 began dragging her toward the door. 
 
 " But I can t swim ! " shrieked the girl. 
 
 " That s why I am having you thrown in the 
 lake," said Lillian coolly. " The rest of you will 
 take note by this that Mrs. Rensselaer is to be pro 
 tected." 
 
 She started back toward the door of the smaller 
 room. The girl, struggling against the two who had 
 her in charge, suddenly burst into a stream of vitu 
 perative profanity, so vicious and so foul that even 
 Lillian, inured as she was by the past week s experi 
 ence to language of the sort, shuddered, and ran
 
 378 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 from the room. She paused in the door to look at 
 Mrs. Rensselaer, and for a moment wonder and ad 
 miration for that woman s poise, even in the face of 
 this trying position, came over her. There was 
 something in the pride of birth, something in the in 
 fluence of a long line of honored ancestry, a gift, 
 intangible and inexplicable, but none the less real, 
 over which she marveled, as have thousands of oth 
 ers descended of coarser clay, since society emerged 
 from its swaddling clothes ; and when she discovered 
 awe of it in herself, like all her kind she resented it. 
 
 " I must have your rings and your brooch, I 
 think, Mrs. Rensselaer," said she, and swiftly going 
 behind the table she disengaged the diamond cluster 
 from Mrs. Rensselaer s throat and stripped the rings 
 from the unresisting fingers. Even as she did this 
 her mood changed again, and she whispered : " It 
 is the best thing for you." Taking the jewels in 
 her hand she cried : " A gift from aristocracy to 
 equality and fraternity ! " and she tossed them in 
 the air. 
 
 A hundred hands reached for them as they came 
 down, and a clamor of excited voices told how pop 
 ular that action had been. Lillian glanced at the 
 scramble with her lip curled for a second in scorn, 
 then she turned to Blagg briskly. 
 
 " Come on," she said, " we have work to do,"
 
 379 
 
 and, followed by Blagg and his score of picked men, 
 she hurried through the little rear room. 
 
 They found the closet door open, and its rear wall 
 pushed back, revealing the narrow secret staircase. 
 Single file they hurriedly descended this, Lillian at 
 the head, and turned into the wide cemented vesti 
 bule, where an electric light was already burning. 
 Lillian dropped down before the combination knob 
 and turned it carefully backward and forward, sev 
 eral times. 
 
 " I feared so," she said to Blagg, who knelt be 
 side her. " The combination has been changed." 
 
 Blagg took the knob in his long, sensitive fingers 
 and, not looking at it, bent his ear close to it, while 
 Lillian laid her bare arm loosely across his shoul 
 ders. He turned the knob slowly and gently; he 
 stopped and turned it backward, slowly and gently ; 
 he stopped and turned it forward and backward and 
 forward again, with deft sureness of touch and 
 hearing, and then smiled as he gave the ring of the 
 door a clutch and pulled. The door came open. 
 
 " It s a good thing that I practised those long, 
 long hours every night on that sample knob in my 
 room up-stairs," he said as he went in to the next 
 one. 
 
 He did not wait for Lillian to try this, but de 
 pended again upon his own touch and hearing.
 
 380 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 Slowly, but with remarkable skill, he worked his 
 way through the four iron doors, until, with Lillian 
 by his side, he had thrown the last one open; and 
 there, in the vault, with a great pile of gold and bills 
 scattered thickly about him and empty drawers lying 
 in confusion everywhere, with his robe and crown 
 still on and his scepter in his hand, stood Henry 
 Breed. 
 
 " Cash ! " he cried. " Cash ! The greatest force 
 in all the world. The power that can totter thrones 
 and disrupt governments; that can cause wars and 
 support them and end them ; that can build cities and 
 devastate them! Cash! The life blood of com 
 merce! The great social dynamo! The golden 
 lever of Archimedes! Cash! Salute your master, 
 Cash, loyal subjects, and your master s master, the 
 King of Cash!" 
 
 "Grandfather!" said Lillian hurrying to him. 
 " Come with me. !We want to put this money away 
 and lock it up so no one can get it. See, you have 
 left all the doors open! " 
 
 A mere fleeting trace of his old shrewdness came 
 into his eyes. 
 
 " Why, I thought I closed them," he quavered. 
 
 Yes, yes, we must hurry and put it back," and 
 
 stooping, his crown rolling down among the 
 
 money in the process, he began to gather up hand- 
 
 fuls of bills.
 
 LILLIAN TAKES POSSESSION 381 
 
 The babble of voices from the upper part of the 
 house, as some one opened the door of the little 
 room back of the library, came sharply down to 
 them. At the sound he straightened up and his dim 
 old eyes grew wide. 
 
 " Hush ! They are coming I " Ke said. " They 
 sha n t have it ! " he suddenly screamed. " It is 
 mine ! Mine ! Every dollar of it ! " 
 
 He rushed toward the door to close it, but he 
 stumbled and fell upon the floor, and lay quite still. 
 
 " Come here, two of you fellows," called Lil 
 lian briskly, back to business once more. " Pick 
 him up and carry him into the little corner at the 
 side of the stairway, where it is light and cool. I 
 think he has only fainted. George, you might as 
 well begin." 
 
 As scf)n as Henry Breed was carried out there 
 was room for the full score of men in the big vault, 
 and Blagg called them all in by name, each one, as 
 he came forward, loosing two long, brown sacks 
 from about his middle. 
 
 " Gather up the money from the floor first," Blagg 
 directed, " then take the drawers systematically, be 
 ginning at the bottom and working up." 
 
 Eagerly the men began filling their sacks, with 
 many exclamations of animal gratification as tha 
 silken feel of the paper and the metallic touch of the 
 metal glided through their fingers.
 
 CHAPTER XXXII 
 
 PHILLIP THE FIRST AND THE KING OF CASH COME 
 EACH TO THE END OF HIS JOURNEY 
 
 IN that deep vault sounds from without were 
 but silences, except as they burst down when 
 the door was opened from above. There was 
 plenty of it to hear, however, for there was mad 
 revelry throughout all the place. The gentlemen 
 and ladies of equality and fraternity had, first of 
 all, hunted out the stores of food and liquor. These 
 despatched, amid much shouting and quarreling, 
 they swarmed over the house like rats, seeking what 
 they might pilfer or destroy. A fire could have 
 gutted the place no worse. Next, the madness to 
 hunt and bring to bay and kill came upon them, and 
 now the very nature of their bodies changed, as, 
 with noses thrust forward and legs bent and talon- 
 curved fingers at the ends of their backward-swung 
 hands they searched with almost whining eagerness 
 in every nook and cranny large enough to conceal 
 human life. They did not find Zelphan but they 
 did find Jens, and when he realized that concealment 
 was no longer possible, he stepped out and faced 
 
 382
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY 383 
 
 them, and fought and died standing as he had 
 preferred. 
 
 Had he remained concealed for but a few brief 
 moments he might still have lived, for there came 
 suddenly upon the big gray house a new and a ter 
 rible sound, borne by swift, shadowy engines that 
 swept upward along the wide curving driveway al 
 most noiseless, except for a rush and a whirr. Out 
 of the purring silence, they burst upon the rabble out 
 side with a sharp rattling hailstorm of leaden death ! 
 
 Kelvin and his squad of flying Gattlings had ar 
 rived, and close behind him trotted the detachment 
 that had been bivouacked nearest the gates. He had 
 come upon those outside stragglers so swiftly that 
 there had been no time to escape his instantaneous 
 engines of destruction, which, sweeping from side 
 to side, mowed down men as if they had been weeds. 
 Stalwart men in khaki sprang upon the steps. 
 There were a few survivors and these, in their panic, 
 the footmen took care of, while other stalwarts car 
 ried a Gattling and planted it in the very doorway, 
 pouring its deadly blight back into the hall. They 
 set it up next at the library door, and swept that 
 room as bare and clear of living humanity as if a 
 flood had washed it out, while the men in khaki 
 swarmed through the house, pursuing the followers 
 of Blagg into bloody corners and exterminating 
 them as if they had been vermin, A detachment,
 
 384 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 with Rensselaer and Kelvin in the lead, stepped over 
 the ghastly, huddled heaps in the library, hurried 
 back through the little room, and poured down the 
 narrow secret stairway. As they had swept through 
 the library Rensselaer had caught a brief glimpse of 
 a gray-haired woman in a black silk gown, with 
 her head upon her folded arms, sitting at the table, 
 but the picture was confused with others of its 
 riddled and useless kind, and he hurried on ahead. 
 
 Kelvin had promised himself to be in the lead as 
 they went down the stairway, but as he turned into 
 the closet entrance, a huge black form thrust itself 
 in before him, and Sam, the long scar upon his left 
 cheek grown livid and his huge mouth distended in 
 a grin that displayed his yellow teeth, and crooning, 
 actually crooning one of those wild melodies of the 
 old plantation days, led the way, unarmed except for 
 the formidable weapons with which nature had pro 
 vided him. 
 
 There had been shouts before this, so no new 
 shouts disturbed the workers in the vault. What 
 little noise the Gattlings had made had sounded but 
 like a sprinkle of rain upon leaves, and the greedy 
 garnerers of Breed s golden harvest were taken by 
 complete surprise. They turned from their tasks 
 as the men in khaki streamed in upon them, but 
 their weapons had been laid aside and they had only
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY 385 
 
 bags of money with which to fight; and these were 
 too heavy ! 
 
 Sam was shouting aloud. An irresistible demon, 
 he clutched first one thin throat in his mighty hands 
 and cracked it and threw the limp, resistless body 
 aside and sprang for another; and the second man 
 to fall before his savage onslaught was Ben White. 
 
 Blagg, with a mighty oath, sprang for Kelvin, 
 who had entered just behind Sam, but one of Rens- 
 selaer s lieutenants was quick enough to intercept 
 him. Blagg blindly fought off this man. He had 
 eyes only for Kelvin, just for Kelvin! In a mo 
 ment the place was a purgatory of weaving, strain 
 ing forms ; but through all his struggle with his own 
 adversary, Blagg never took his eyes from Phillip. 
 Finally, with his arms clasped about the middle of 
 the lieutenant, he gradually bent his assailant back 
 ward, and in the act managed to draw the lieuten 
 ant s pistol from its holster. In place of turning 
 it upon his own antagonist, he leveled it over the 
 man s shoulder straight at Kelvin ! 
 
 It was Sam, who, shouting in a fever of savage 
 joy, saw that motion and sprang to wrest the pistol 
 from Blagg. He only succeeded in placing his body 
 between the pistol and his master, and, with his big 
 hands upon the shoulders of the two struggling men 
 in front of him, received in his own breast the
 
 3 86 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 three bullets that the firearm yet contained. Then, 
 his work done, he fell heavily to the floor, and upon 
 his face was fixed for ever that same sardonic grin 
 that displayed all his snarling yellow teeth. 
 
 Kelvin, spent with his own efforts, stood erect to 
 breathe for a moment, and in that moment a needle- 
 sharp dagger was thrust into his side. He tottered 
 and fell, and above him knelt Lillian Breed, while 
 before his eyes she held the dagger. 
 
 " See ! " she cried. " This was your emblem of 
 triumph! This was the sign in which you were to 
 conquer! This was the instrument that twice 
 threatened you and twice failed; but the third time 
 it wins ! Phillip, you made but one mistake. Had 
 you put me at your side as your Empress, in this 
 sign," and she held the dagger point upward, " we 
 would have conquered the world ; but you repudiated 
 me, and in this sign you die ! " 
 
 Kelvin turned his face wearily away. The ges 
 ture maddened her and in fury she would have 
 raised the dagger again to smite him with it, but 
 one of the throng of soldiers who were still pouring 
 in, struck it from her hand and overpowered her 
 and bound her arms behind her, as those of Blagg 
 had already been bound. Except for these two, not 
 one of the despoilers in the vault was able to do 
 damage, and Rensselaer, unscathed, looked down 
 upon Phillip with tears moistening his eyes. He
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY 387 
 
 choked them back, however, as he thought became 
 a soldier. 
 
 " Take him out carefully, boys," he said; " but get 
 him into the air quickly ! " 
 
 He himself took Phillip s shoulders, and care 
 fully, gently, they bore him up the narrow stairway 
 and through the shambles that had once been a 
 library. As they passed through that room Rensse- 
 laer s eye happened to rest again upon that motion 
 less, gray-haired woman at the library table, struck 
 down by his own Gattling, and as he recognized her 
 he turned faint and almost dropped his burden. 
 
 " Here," he told one of his men, " help carry 
 him. I can not." 
 
 He almost stumbled into the outer air, and the 
 men followed him with Kelvin, and, covering him to 
 the breast with a sheet hastily snatched from Breed s 
 couch, laid the first and last Emperor of America 
 flat upon the porch at the edge of the steps, where 
 the cooling breeze might blow upon his brow, and 
 the brightest star in the sky, his " star of destiny," 
 might beam down mockingly upon him. There was 
 no foe at hand, for all the present foe had been 
 despatched, and the soldiers turned as with one im 
 pulse toward the spot where the leader they had fol 
 lowed lay pale and rigid under the yellow porch 
 light ; and this yellow light was, in a moment more, 
 augmented by a saffron glare that flared out as the
 
 388 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 roof, from a fire in the attic, started by the recent 
 vandals, broke into a blaze ! 
 
 " Charge ! " came a sudden sharp yoice from the 
 shrubbery. 
 
 Startled, in the glare of the burning roof Rensse- 
 laer saw a host of men, with fixed bayonets, sud 
 denly spring out of the dark shrubbery at the north 
 west side of the building and come tearing down 
 upon them, braving a hand to hand conflict imme 
 diately upon their sudden discovery in the broad 
 light. 
 
 "Left face! Present arms!" came the sharp 
 command of Rensselaer. 
 
 The word " Fire " was just trembling upon his 
 lips when he recognized the advancing leader, rush 
 ing with drawn saber and pistol at the side of the 
 first line in the column. 
 
 " Halt ! For God s sake, halt ! " he cried, jump 
 ing down from the porch before his men and facing 
 the oncoming ranks, waving the white sheet that he 
 had snatched from across Kelvin. " A truce ! 
 For God s sake, Rollins, halt your men! This mad 
 ness is all over! Kelvin is dead! " 
 
 Within but a few feet of what must otherwise 
 have been a desperate struggle, the advancing 
 column was checked, and Rollins heard briefly from 
 the sickened Rensselaer what had happened. He
 
 THE END* OE THE JOURNEY 389 
 
 strode up the steps and stood before Kelvin with 
 bared head. 
 
 " Only mistaken," he said in benediction and for 
 giveness. Then he turned to his own followers and 
 those of Rensselaer. " As President of the United 
 States, vice Kelvin, I have become your chief com 
 manding officer, * he told them. " Kelvin is dead, 
 but the republic still lives. Blagg and his consort 
 will die this morning, and with them the rebellion 
 is broken. There will be fighting yet, some little, 
 and turmoil and hardship before peace is restored to 
 us; and some restrictive legislation, to be carefully 
 and wisely considered, must be made to keep down 
 such appalling accumulations of wealth as may 
 threaten our liberty and our republic; but, gentle 
 men, through it all the Constitution of the United 
 States still is sacred and supreme, and there," his 
 voice took on a sudden ring of exultation, " and 
 there waves its everlasting emblem ! " 
 
 One grizzled old veteran, of Sumner Rollins 
 ranks, had brought with him, so tightly folded that 
 it might have been taken as a pike, a tattered old 
 American flag that had gone through the war of the 
 North and South, and had now flung its war- 
 stained stars and stripes to their gaze There was 
 a cheer, but only a feeble one. After all the turmoil 
 and its solemn ending, the sight of this almost for-
 
 390 THE CASH INTRIGUE 
 
 gotten banner proved too much for wild cheering, 
 and instead, the men, almost with one accord, took 
 off their hats, and moisture stood in their eyes. 
 
 A strange figure appeared among them. Old 
 Henry Breed, still clad in his mockery of royal rai 
 ment, staggered to the door. In his fall and 
 through all that succeeded it, his hands had convul 
 sively gripped his money, and he still held it, green 
 and orange, in his fingers. 
 
 " Cash ! " his shrill old voice quavered as he 
 flaunted it in the air. " Cash ! The greatest force 
 in all the world ! The power that can totter thrones 
 and disrupt governments; that can cause wars and 
 support them and end them; that can build cities 
 and devastate them; that can crush all life and de 
 stroy all happiness and debauch all honor! Cash! 
 The life blood of commerce! The great social 
 dynamo! The golden lever of Archimedes! 
 Cash!" 
 
 He stopped to laugh shrilly, and allowed a soldier 
 to seat him in a chair where he drooled off into a 
 jibbering mumbling. As he left the doorway his 
 place was taken by Doctor Zelphan, his cap on his 
 head, his twinkling eyes gleaming through his thick 
 spectacles and his red beard pointed straight out. 
 Both hands were filled with shawl-strapped packages 
 of his precious manuscript. It was all he had cared 
 to save from the flames. He looked down at Breed 
 a moment in contemplative pity.
 
 THE END OF THE JOURNEY 391 
 
 " He will die the way he is now," said he. " His 
 once remarkable brain is mere mush. He was a 
 wonderful study, a most wonderful study, and the 
 nearest approach to an absolute monarch of any 
 resident of this globe. In the meantime, gentlemen, 
 America has had her orgasm and her nerves will 
 be quieter now. I bid you good day. I am going 
 to Switzerland," and he strode down the drive and 
 around the trees at the bend. 
 
 Running around the corner came Elsie White, 
 who had been bidden to stay back in safety, but 
 who could not, and Rollins drew her to his side. 
 The wind, blowing away some fleecy clouds, revealed 
 in the east the first rosy glow of coming day, and 
 the same grim old veteran who had brought with 
 him the war-stained battle flag, broke in trembling 
 accents into a song that cleared the still quivering air 
 of the fevered Marseillaise,, that was caught up by a 
 mighty chorus of newly freed men, that was at once 
 the requiescat of Kelvin, a benediction, and the 
 promise of a new birth for the republic he had al 
 most throttled : 
 
 " Oh say can you see, by the dawn s early light, 
 What so proudly we hailed at the twilight s last 
 gleaming ! " 
 
 THE END
 
 A 000052051 o