Fenton threw down his ruler impatiently.

"Mr. Porter, I want you to remember that I haven't given you any advice at all in this matter. It's an extra hazardous thing that you're doing.

Now, I don't know anything definitely about it, but--I've got the impression that Margrave's paralleling your lines in this business."

Porter brought his feet down with a crash.

"Where'd you get that?"

"It's this way," said Fenton, in his quietest tones. "A Baltimore lawyer that I know wrote me a letter,--I just got it this morning,--asking me about Margrave's responsibility. It seems that my friend has a client who owns some of these shares. A good deal of that stock went to Baltimore and Philadelphia, you may remember. I a.s.sume that Margrave is after it."

"Wire your friend right away not to sell,--" shouted Porter, pounding the table with his fist.

"I did that this morning, and here's his answer. I got it just before you came in. Margrave evidently got anxious and wired them to send certificates with draft through the Drovers' National. They're probably on the way now." He pa.s.sed the telegram across to Porter, who put on his gla.s.ses and read it.

"Now," continued Fenton, "I don't know just what this means, but it looks to me as if Margrave was hot on the track of the trolley company himself; and Tim Margrave isn't a particularly pleasant fellow to go into business with, is he?"

"But the bondholders would still have their chance, wouldn't they, even if he got a majority of the stock?"

"Well, you haven't any bonds, have you? First thing I know you'll be telling me that you've got a few barrels of them," he added, jokingly.

He could not help laughing at Porter.

Porter took the cigar from his mouth, looked carefully at the lighted end of it, and said with a casual air, as if he had a particularly decisive and conclusive statement to make and wished to avail himself of its dramatic possibilities:

"My dear boy, I've got every blamed bond!"

Fenton sat gazing at him in stupefied wonder.

"Would you mind saying that again?" he said, after a full minute of silent amazement in which he sat staring at his client, who was blowing rings of smoke with great equanimity.

"I've got all the bonds, was what I said."

The lawyer walked around the table and put his hand on Porter's shoulder. He was trying to keep from laughing, like a parent who is about to rebuke a child and yet laughs at the cause of its offense.

Porter evidently thought that he had done an extremely bright thing.

"As I understand you, you have bought all of the bonds and half of the stock."

"About half. I'm a little--just a little--short."

"Will you kindly tell me what you wanted with the stock if you had the bonds?"

"Well, I figured it this way, that the franchise was worth the price I had to pay for the whole thing, and if I had the stock control I'd save the fuss of foreclosing. You lawyers always make a lot of rumpus about those things, and a receivership would prejudice the Eastern market when I come to reorganize and sell out."

Fenton lay back in his chair and laughed, while Porter looked at him a little defiantly, with his hat tipped over his eyes and a cigar sticking in his mouth at an impertinent angle.

"You'd better finish your job and make sure of your majority," said Fenton. His rage was rising now and he did not urge Porter to remain when the banker got up to go. He was not at all anxious to defend a franchise which the local courts, always sensitive to public sentiment, might set aside.

"I'll see you in the morning first thing," said Porter at the door, which Fenton opened for him. "I want you to go to the meeting with me and we'll need a day to get ready."

The lawyer watched his client walk toward the elevator. It occurred to him that Porter's step was losing its elasticity. While the banker waited for the elevator car he leaned wearily against the wire screen of the shaft.

Fenton swore quietly to himself for a few minutes and then sat down with a copy of the charter of the Clarkson Traction Company before him, and spent the remainder of the day studying it. He had troubled much over Porter's secretive ways, and had labored to shatter the dangerous conceit which had gradually grown up in his client. Porter had, in fact, a contempt for lawyers, though he leaned on Fenton more than he would admit. Fenton, on the other hand, was constantly fearful lest his client should undo himself by his secretive methods. He had difficulty in getting all the facts out of him even when they were imperatively required. Once in the trial of a case for Porter, the opposing counsel made a statement which Fenton rose in full confidence to refute. His antagonist reaffirmed it, and Fenton, not doubting that he understood Porter's position thoroughly, appealed to him to deny the charge, fully expecting to score an effective point before the court. To his consternation, Porter coolly admitted the truth of the imputation. But even this incident and Fenton's importunity in every matter that arose thereafter did not cure Porter of his weakness. He was a difficult client, who was, as Fenton often said to himself, a good deal harder to manage in a lawsuit than the trial judge or opposing counsel.

The next morning Fenton was at his office early and sent his boy at once to ask Mr. Porter to come up. The boy reported that Mr. Porter had not been at the bank. Fenton went down himself at ten o'clock and found the president's desk closed.

"Where's the boss?" he demanded.

"Won't be down this morning," said Wheaton. "Miss Porter telephoned that he wasn't feeling well, but he expected to be down after luncheon."

CHAPTER XXIV

INTERRUPTED PLANS

Porter had wakened that morning with a pain-racked body and the hot taste of fever in his mouth. He dressed and went downstairs to breakfast, but left the table and returned to his room to lie down.

"I'll be all right in an hour or so; I guess I've taken cold," he said to Evelyn. At the end of an hour he was shaking with a chill.

Evelyn left him alone to telephone for the doctor and in her absence he tried to rise and fainted. He was still lying on the floor when she returned. When the doctor came he found the household in a panic, and almost before Porter realized it, he was hazily watching the white cap of the trained nurse whom the doctor ordered with his medicines.

"Your father has a fever of some sort," he said to Evelyn. "It may be only a severe attack of malaria; but it's probably typhoid. In any event, there's nothing to be alarmed about. Mr. Porter has one of the old-fashioned const.i.tutions," he added, rea.s.suringly, "and there's nothing to fear for him."

Porter protested all the morning that he would go to his office after luncheon, but the temperature line on the nurse's chart climbed steadily upward. He resented the tyranny of the nurse, who moved about the room with an air of having been there always, and he was impatient under the efforts of Evelyn to soothe him. The doctor came again at noon. He was of Porter's age and an old friend; he dealt frankly with his patient now. Evelyn stood by and listened, adding her own words of pleading and cheer; and while the doctor gave instructions to the nurse outside, he relaxed, and let her smooth his pillow and bathe his hot brow.

"This may be my turn--" he began.

"Not by any manner of means, father," she broke in with a lightness she did not feel. It moved her greatly to see his weakness.

"It's an unfortunate time," he said, "and there's something you must do for me. I've got to see Wheaton or Fenton. It's very important."

"But you mustn't, father; business can wait until you're well again. It will be only a few days--"

"You mustn't question what I ask," he went on very steadily. "It's of great importance," and she knew that he meant it.

"Can't I see them for you?" she asked. He turned his slight lean body under the covers, and shook his head helplessly on his pillow.

"You see you can't talk, father," she said very gently. "Is there anything I can say to them for you?"

"Yes," he said weakly, "I want you to give the key to one of my boxes to Wheaton. Tell him to take out a package--marked Traction--and give it to Fenton."

Evelyn brought his key ring and he pointed out the key and watched her slip it from the ring.

"I'll send for Mr. Wheaton at once," she said. "Don't worry any more about it, father."

"Evelyn!" She had started for the door, but now hurried back to him.

"Don't tell him anything over the telephone; just ask him to come up."

She went out at once that he might be a.s.sured, and he turned wearily on his pillow and slept.