“Your paper certainly turned the trick.  I gotta hand it to you!”

“What trick?” asked Hal, not recognizing the stranger.

“Selling my stock.  Streaky Mountain Copper Company.  Don’t you remember?”

Hal did remember now.  It was L.P.  McQuiggan.

“More of the same for me, if you please,” continued the visitor.  “I’ve just made the deal with Shearson.  He’s stuck me up on rates a little.  That’s all right, though.  The ‘Clarion’ fetches the dough.  I want to start the new campaign with an interview on our prospects.  Is it O.K.?”

“Come up and see Mr. Ellis,” said Hal.

Having led him to the editorial office, Hal sat down to work, but found no escape from his thoughts.  There was but one thing to do:  he must have it out at once with Dr. Surtaine.  He telephoned the factory for an appointment.  Sharp-eared McQuiggan caught the call.

“That my old pal, Andy?” said he.  “Gimme a shot at him while you’ve got him on the wire, will you?”

Cheery, not to say chirpy, was the mining promoter’s greeting projected into the transmitter which Hal turned over to him.  Straightway, however, a change came o’er his blithe spirit.

“Something’s biting the old geezer,” he informed Hal and Ellis.  “Seems to have a grouch.  Says he’s coming over, pronto—­right quick.”

Five minutes later, while Mr. McQuiggan was running over some proofs which he had brought with him, Dr. Surtaine walked into the office.  There was about him a formidable smoothness, as of polished metal.  He greeted his old friend with a nod and a cool “Back again, I see, Elpy.”

“And doing business at the old stand,” rejoined his friend.  “Worthington’s the place where the dollars grow, all right.”

“Grow, and stay,” said Dr. Surtaine.

“Meaning?” inquired McQuiggan solicitously.

“That you’ve over-medicated this field.”

“Have I got any dollars away from you, Andy?”

“No.  But you have from my people.”

“Well, their money’s as good to buy booze with as anybody else’s, I reckon.”

Dr. Surtaine had sat down, directly opposite the visitor, fronting him eye-to-eye.  Nothing loath, McQuiggan accepted the challenge.  His hard, brisk voice, with a sub-tone of the snarl, crossed the Doctor’s strong, heavy utterance like a rapier engaging a battle-axe.  Both assumed a suavity of manner felt to be just at the breaking point.  The two spectators sat, surprised and expectant.

“I don’t suppose,” said Dr. Surtaine, after a pause, “there’s any use trying to get you to refund.”

“Still sticking out for the money-back-if-not-satisfied racket—­in the other fellow’s business, eh, Andy?  Better practice it in your own.”

“Hal,”—­Dr. Surtaine turned to his son,—­“has McQuiggan brought in a new batch of copy?”

“So I understand.”

“The ‘Clarion’ mustn’t run it.”