“If I call the meeting, I shall be ridiculed; and if I don’t call it, I suppose you’ll go to Brewster and Magnus and tell them I’ve muzzled you.  Have it your own way.  I’ll issue the call for ten o’clock, the day after to-morrow, in McVeigh and Mackie’s offices in Broad Street.  But I warn you in advance, Mr. Ford, I shall not be able to help you in the least.  And I may add this:  that when you reach that part of your proposal where you call for thirty-five millions additional capital, you may as well put on your hat and go home.  That will be the end of it.”

“And of me,” laughed the enthusiast.  But in spite of the cold comfort, and of the still colder promise of opposition, he took his leave with a lighter heart, refusing Mr. Colbrith’s rather perfunctory invitation to stay to luncheon.

And on the gravelled drive, where he again had to make way for the auto-car purring in on its return, he did not so much as look up at the pair in the driving-seat.

V

WANTED:  THIRTY-FIVE MILLIONS

The offices of McVeigh and Mackie, brokers and financial agents, are in Broad Street, and the windows of the room used for board meetings look down upon the angle where beats the money pulse of the nation.

Ford had successfully resisted the temptation to lobby for his scheme during the one-day interval between his conference with Mr. Colbrith and the date of the called meeting of the directors.  It was not any mistaken sense of loyalty to the president that restrained him; on the contrary, he decided that Mr. Colbrith’s declaration of war left him free to fight as he would.  But upon due consideration he concluded to set the advantage of an assault en masse over against the dubious gain of an advanced skirmish line, and when he turned out of Broadway into Wall Street on the morning of destiny the men whom he was to meet and convince were still no more to him than a list of names in the Poor’s Manual, consulted within the hour for the purpose.

He was early on the battle-ground; much too early, he thought, when a clerk ushered him into the board room in the rear of the brokers’ offices.  As yet there was only one person present—­a young man who was lounging in the easiest of the leather-covered chairs and yawning dismally.  At the first glance the face seemed oddly and strikingly familiar; but when the young man marked the new-comer’s entrance, the small hand-bag in which the amateur promoter carried his papers, and got up to shake hands, Ford found the suggestive gropings baffled.

“My name is Adair,” said the lounger genially; “and I suppose you are the Mr. Ford Uncle Sidney has been telling us about.  Pull up a chair and sit by the window.  It’s the only amusement you’ll have until the clan gathers.”

Ford looked at his watch.

“I seem to be ahead of time,” he remarked.  “I understood Mr. Colbrith to say that the meeting would be called for ten o’clock.”