“Yes.”

Scattergood walked calmly toward it.  The slender clerk interposed.  Scattergood picked him up, tucked him under a huge arm, and waddled through the great man’s door.

“Howdy, Mr. Linderman?  Howdy?”

Linderman looked up and frowned, then his eyes twinkled.

“Who are you?  What have you there?”

“Young feller I found outside.  ‘Fraid of steppin’ on him, so I picked him up to save him.  You can run along now, sonny,” he said to the clerk.  “He let on I couldn’t see you,” Scattergood explained.

“What’s your name?”

“Scattergood Baines.”

“Of Coldriver?” Scattergood was surprised, but did not show it.  “Yes.”

“Sit down.”

“Thankee....  Come to do a mite of business with you.  Interested in pulp, hain’t you.  Quite consid’able interested?”

“Very much.”

“Know the Higgins’s Bridge Pulp Company?”

“Of course.  Understand they’re in difficulties.”

“In some, and goin’ to be in more.  That’s why I come down.”

Thereupon Scattergood explained in detail his contract with the pulp company, and his theories of what that company was planning to do to him.  “Double barreled,” he said.  “Crane and Keith owns them bonds.  Figger on freezin’ out the stockholders and buyin’ ’em out for a song.  Figger on bustin’ me.  Next we hear the mill’ll be in receiver’s hands.  No money.  Can’t pay no contracts.  My notes’ll come due, and I’m done for.  Simple.  Crane thought it up.”

“What do you want of me?  So far as I can see, you are up against it.  You can’t borrow any more, and your notes won’t be extended.  You’re done.”

“Hain’t started yet—­not yet.  Figger to start to-day.  That’s why I come to see you.”

“But I can do nothing for you.”

“Higgins’s Bridge mill’s good, hain’t it?  Logical payin’ proposition?  Money to be made?”

“Yes.”

“Like to own it cheap?”

“Of course.”

“Crane and Keith is gittin’ ready for a killin’.  Own big block of stock.  Paid par.  Want to sell, I hear ... if anybody’s fool enough to buy.  Then want to buy back for dum’ near nothin’ when receivership comes.  Good scheme.  Money in it.  Crane thought it up.”

“What’s your idea?”

“Buy all they got.  Option the rest.  Easy....  What happens when a man sells somethin’ he hain’t got?”

“He has to get it some place.”

“If he can’t get it, what?”

“Makes it expensive for him.”

“Thought so.  Figgered that way....  Nobody to interfere.  Crane and Keith left orders to sell.  They won’t be takin’ notice.  Got ’em worried some place else.  Mighty worried.”  Scattergood recounted the story of Plumm’s farm.

Mr. Linderman scrutinized Scattergood intently and nodded his head.  “And you want me—­”

“Put up the money.  Git the stock.  Lemme handle it.  Gimme twenty per cent.”