“I tell you, Bass,” he said one evening, “if you allow him to run around loose much longer, we’re lost, that’s all there is to it!” (Mr. Batch referred to the captain in question.) “They’ll buy up his block at his figure—­see, if they don’t.  They’re getting desperate.  Don’t you think I’d better bid him in?”

“B-bid him in if you’ve a mind to; Ed.”

“Look here, Jethro,” said Mr. Batch, savagely biting off the end of a cigar, “I’m beginning to think you don’t care a continental about this business.  Which side are you on, anyway?” The heat and the length and the uncertainty of the struggle were telling on the nerves of the railroad president.  “You sit there from morning till night and won’t say anything; and now, when there’s only one block out, you won’t give the word to buy it.”

“N-never told you to buy anything, did I—­Ed?”

“No,” answered Mr. Batch, “you haven’t.  I don’t know what the devil’s got into you.”

“D-done all the payin’ without consultin’ me, hain’t you, Ed?”

“Yes; I have.  What are you driving at?”

“D-done it if I hadn’t b’en here, wouldn’t you?”

“Yes, and more too,” said Mr. Batch.

“W-wouldn’t make much difference to you if I wasn’t here—­would it?”

“Great Scott, Jethro, what do you mean?” cried the railroad president, in genuine alarm; “you’re not going to pull out, are you?”

“W-wouldn’t make much odds if I did—­would it, Ed?”

“The devil it wouldn’t!” exclaimed Mr. Balch.  “If you pulled out, we’d lose the North Country, and Peleg, and Gosport, and nobody can tell which way Alva Hopkins will swing.  I guess you know what he’ll do—­you’re so d—­d secretive I can’t tell whether you do or not.  If you pulled out, they’d have their bill on Friday.”

“H-hain’t under any obligations to you, Ed—­am I?”

“No,” said Mr. Batch, “but I don’t see why you keep harping on that.”

“J-dust wanted to have it clear,” said Jethro, and relapsed into silence.

There was a fireproof carpet on the Throne Room, and Mr. Batch flung down his cigar and stamped on it and went out.  No wonder he could not understand Jethro’s sudden scruples about money and obligations—­about railroad money, that is.  Jethro was spending some of his own, but not in the capital, and in a manner which was most effective.  In short, at the very moment when Mr. Batch stamped on his cigar, Jethro had the victory in his hands—­only he did not choose to say so.  He had had a mysterious telegram that day from Harwich, signed by Chauncey Weed, and Mr. Weed himself appeared at the door of Number 7, fresh from his travels, shortly after Mr. Batch had gone out of it.  Mr. Weed closed the door gently, and locked it, and sat down in a rocking chair close to Jethro and put his hand over his mouth.  We cannot hear what Mr. Weed is saying.  All is mystery here, and in order to preserve that mystery we shall delay for a little the few words which will explain Mr. Weed’s successful mission.