At his door he dismissed the car.  He wanted quiet.  He wanted to think it all out.  That morning it had seemed probable that by this time he would have been occupying a felon’s cell, inspecting the magazines and fruit sent to him.  Instead, he was not only free, but he was keeping a man worth many millions from his own home, and perhaps he had caused that man’s wife to send over to White Plains for some more.  It was Ram-tah.  All Ram-tah.  If only every one could find his Ram-tah—­

Cassidy was reading his favourite evening paper, the one that shrieked to the extreme limits of its first page in scarlet headlines and mammoth type.  It was a paper that Bean never bought, because the red ink rubbed off to the peril of one’s eighteen-dollar suit.

Cassidy, who for thirty years had voted as the ward-boss directed, was for the moment believing himself to be a rabid socialist.

“Wall Street crooks!” he began, in a fine orative frenzy.  “Dur-r-rinkin’ their champagne whilst th’ honest poor’s lucky t’ git a shell av hops!  Ruh-hobbin’ th’ tax-pay’r f’r’ t’ buy floozie gowns an’ joold bresslets f’r their fancy wives an’ such.  I know th’ kind well; not wan cud do a day’s bakin’ or windy-washin’!”

He held the noisy sheet before Bean and accusingly pointed a blunt forefinger.  “Burly Blonde Divorcee, Routed Society Burglar,” across the first two columns, but the proceeding was rather tamely typed and the Burly Blonde’s portrait in evening dress was inconspicuous beside the headlines “Flurry in Federal Express!  Wild Scenes on Stock Exchange.  Millions made by Gentlemen’s Agreement.”

“Gentlemin!” hissed Cassidy.  “The sem agreemint that two gentlemin porch-climbers has whin wan climbs whilst th’ other watches t’ see is th’ cop at th’ upper ind av th’ beat!  Millions med whilst I’m wur-r-kin’ f’r twinty per month an’ what’s slipped me—­th’ sem not buyin’ manny jools ner private steamboats!  Millions med!  I know th’ kind well!” Bean felt his own indignation rise with Cassidy’s.  He was seeing why they had feared to have him on the board of directors.  Apparently they were bent on wrecking the company by a campaign of extravagance.  The substance of what he gleaned from Cassidy’s newspaper was that those directors had declared a stock dividend of 200 per cent. and a cash dividend of 100 per cent.

They were madly wrecking the company in which he had invested his savings.  Such was his first thought.  And they were crooks, as Cassidy said, because for two years they had been quietly, through discreet agents, buying in the stock from unsuspecting holders.

“Rascals,” agreed Bean with Cassidy, leaving but slight gifts for character analysis.

“Tellin’ th’ poor dubs th’ stock was goin’ down with one hand an’ buyin’ it in with th’ other,” said the janitor, lucidly.

Bean was suddenly troubled by a cross-current of thought.  When you wrecked a company you didn’t buy in the stock—­you sold.  He viewed the headlines from a new angle.  Those directors were undoubtedly rascals, but was he not a rascal himself?  What about his own shares?