past saw at the side of the road a car with her engine running, and leaning upon the wheel, as unconscious of his surroundings as though he sat at his own fireplace, a young man who frowned and stared at nothing.  The half-hour passed and the young man swung his car back toward the city.  But at the first road-house that showed a blue-and-white telephone sign he left it, and into the iron box at the end of the bar dropped a nickel.  He wished to communicate with Mr. Carroll, of Carroll and Hastings; and when he learned Mr. Carroll had just issued orders that he must not be disturbed, the young man gave his name.

The effect upon the barkeeper was instantaneous.  With the aggrieved air of one who feels he is the victim of a jest he laughed scornfully.

“What are you putting over?” he demanded.

The young man smiled reassuringly.  He had begun to speak and, though apparently engaged with the beer-glass he was polishing, the barkeeper listened.

Down in Wall Street the senior member of Carroll and Hastings also listened.  He was alone in the most private of all his private offices, and when interrupted had been engaged in what, of all undertakings, is the most momentous.  On the desk before him lay letters to his lawyer, to the coroner, to his wife; and hidden by a mass of papers, but within reach of his hand, was an automatic pistol.  The promise it offered of swift release had made the writing of the letters simple, had given him a feeling of complete detachment, had released him, at least in thought, from all responsibilities.  And when at his elbow the telephone coughed discreetly, it was as though some one had called him from a world from which already he had made his exit.

Mechanically, through mere habit, he lifted the receiver.

The voice over the telephone came in brisk, staccato sentences.

“That letter I sent this morning?  Forget it.  Tear it up.  I’ve been thinking and I’m going to take a chance.  I’ve decided to back you boys, and I know you’ll make good.  I’m speaking from a road-house in the Bronx; going straight from here to the bank.  So you can begin to draw against us within an hour.  And—­hello!—­will three millions see you through?”

From Wall Street there came no answer, but from the hands of the barkeeper a glass crashed to the floor.

The young man regarded the barkeeper with puzzled eyes.

“He doesn’t answer,” he exclaimed.  “He must have hung up.”

“He must have fainted!” said the barkeeper.

The white-haired one pushed a bill across the counter.  “To pay for breakage,” he said, and disappeared down Pelham Parkway.

Throughout the day, with the bill, for evidence, pasted against the mirror, the barkeeper told and retold the wondrous tale.

“He stood just where you’re standing now,” he related, “blowing in million-dollar bills like you’d blow suds off a beer.  If I’d knowed it was him, I’d have hit him once and hid him in the cellar for the reward.  Who’d I think he was?  I thought he was a wire-tapper, working a con game!”