“These gentlemen pushed past me in the hall, sir,” the footman explained, deprecatingly.  “My back was turned only for a moment, and Wilkins was down having his supper.”

“You can go,” Phineas Duge said coldly, waving him out of the room.  “What do you want with me, Weiss?”

“A few minutes’ sensible talk,” Weiss answered.  “It will do you no harm to listen to us.  Send your servant away and give us a quarter of an hour.”

Phineas Duge hesitated, but only for a moment.  These men had come openly, and they were known to be his enemies.  It was not possible that they intended to use any violence.  He turned to the butler, who stood behind his chair.

“Place chairs for these gentlemen,” he ordered, “and leave the room.”

They sat on his left-hand side, Phineas Duge pushed the decanter of Burgundy toward them, and the cigars.  Then he leaned back in his chair and waited.

“Duge, we ought to have come to you before,” Weiss began.  “We are playing a child’s game, all of us.”

“Whatever the game may be,” Duge answered, “it is not I who invented it.”

“We grant that to start with,” Weiss answered.  “We were in the wrong.  You have done a little better than hold your own against us.  We are several millions of dollars the poorer and you the richer for our split.  Let it go at that.  We have other things to think about just now besides this juggling with markets.  I take it that we are none of us particularly anxious to learn what the interior of a police court looks like.”

Phineas Duge made no motion of assent or dissent.

“You refer,” he said, “to the action against the Trusts which the President is supposed to be supporting so vigorously?”

Weiss nodded.

“The thing’s further advanced than we were any of us inclined to believe,” he answered.  “Every one of us is interested in this, you more than any of us.  If Harrison’s Bill passes the Senate, we are liable to imprisonment at any moment.  We are up against it hard, Duge, and we can’t face it as we ought while we’re squabbling amongst ourselves like a set of children.”

“You propose then,” Phineas Duge said slowly, “to close our accounts on a mutual basis?”

“Precisely!” Weiss answered.  “You have had the best of it, and it might be our turn to-morrow, so you can well afford to do this.  We want to rest on our oars for a time, while we look round and face this new danger.”

“Very well,” Phineas Duge said, “I agree.  We will meet at your office to-morrow and bring our brokers.  I am quite willing to end this fight.  It was not I who began it.”

Higgins drew a little breath of relief.  He was perhaps the poorest of the group, and it was his stock which Duge had been handling so roughly.  “Thank heavens!” he said.  “Now we can have a moment’s breathing time, to see what we can do for these fellows who want to teach us how to manage our affairs.”