The Metropolis

And at once the other became grave. " You've taken a case against this company," he said. "And OUie has talked enough to me to make me understand that you've done a plucky thing, and that you must be everlastingly sick of hearing from cowardly people who want you to drop it. I'd be very sorry to be classed with them, for even a moment; and you must understand at the outset that I haven't a particle of interest in the company, and that it wouldn't matter to me if I had. I don't try to use my friends in business, and I don't let money count with me in my social life. I made up my mind to take the risk of speaking to you about this case, simply because I happen to know one or two things about it that I thought you didn't know. And if that's so, you are at a great disadvantage; but in any case, please understand that I have no motive but friendship, and so if I am butting in, excuse me."

When Siegfried Harvey talked, he looked straight at one with his clear blue eyes, and there was no doubting his honesty. "I aia very much obliged to you," said Montague. "Pray tell me what you have to say."

"All right," said the other. "It can be done very quickly. You have taken a case which involves a great many sacrifices upon your part. And I wondered if it had ever occurred to you to ask whether you might not be taken advantage of.?"

"How do you mean.?" asked Montague.

"Do you know the people who are behind you?" inquired the other. "Do you know

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them well enough to be sure what are their motives in the case?"

Montague hesitated, and thought. "No," he said, "I couldn't say that I do."

"Then it's just as I thought," replied Harvey. "I've been watching you — you are an honest man, and you're puttmg yourself to no end of trouble from the best of motives. And unless I'm mistaken, you're being used by men who are not honest, and whom you wouldn't work with if you knew their purposes."

"What purposes could they have.?"

"There are several possibilities. In the first place, it might be a strike' suit — somebody who is hoping to be bought off for a big price. That is what nearly everyone thinks is the case. But I don't; I think it's more likely someone within the company who is trying to put the administration in a hole."

"Who could that be.'^" exclaimed Montague, amazed.

"I don't know that. I'm not familiar enough with the situation in the Fidelity — it's changing all the time. I simply know that there are factions struggling for the control of it, and hating each other furiously, and ready to do anything in the world to cripple each other. You know that their forty millions of surplus give an enormous power; I'd rather be able to swing' forty millions in the Street than to have ten millions in my own right. And so the giants are fighting for the control of those companies; and you can't tell who's in and who's out — you can never know the real meaning of any-

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thing that happens in the struggle. All that you can be sure of is that the game is crooked from end to end, and that nothing that happens in it is what it pretends to be."

Montague listened, half dazed, and feeling as if the ground he stood on were caving beneath his feet.

"What do you know about those who brought you this case?" asked his companion, suddenly.

"Not much," he said weakly.

Harvey hesitated a moment. "Understand me, please," he said. "I've no wish to pry into your affairs, and if you don't care to say any more, I'll understand it perfectly. But I've heard it said that the man who started the thing was Ellis."

Montague, in his turn, hesitated; then he said, "That is correct — between you and me."

"Very good," said Harvey, "and that is what made me suspicious. Do you know anything about Ellis?"

"I didn't," said the other. "I've heard a little since."

"I can fancy so," said Harvey. "And I can tell you that Ellis is mixed up in life-insurance matters in all sorts of dubious ways. It seems to me that you hstve reason to be most careful where you follow him."

Montague sat with his hands clenched and his brows knitted. His friend's talk had been like a flash of lightning; it revealed huge menacing forms in the darkness about him. All the structure of his hopes seemed to be tottering; his case, that he had worked so hard over — his

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fifty thousand dollars that he had been so proud of! Could it be that he had been tricked, and had made a fool of himself ?

"How in the world am I to know?" he cried.

"That is more than I can tell," said his friend. "And for that matter, I'm not sure that you could do anything now. All that I could do was to warn you what sort of ground you were treading on, so that you could watch out for yourself in future."

Montague thanked him heartily for that service ; and then he went back to his office, and spent the rest of the day pondering the matter.