Clay ton had fallen judiciously into the haven of a well-chosen
apartment, sharing his intimacy only with Arthur Ferris, the
brisk-eyed advocate whose curt office missive always enforced the
lagging collections of the New York branch.

Simultaneously with his last promotion, however, there came to
Clayton the knowledge that he was continuously and systematically
watched by the unseen agents of the Fidelity Company.

And, yet strong in his own determination, he bore as a galling
chain, growing heavier with the months, the knowledge that the eye
of the secret agent would surely follow him, in all the "pleasures"
incident to his time of life and rising financial station.

The sword hung over his defenceless head!--too busy for the gad-fly
life of the clubs--a strong, lonely swimmer in the tide of New York
life, he was as yet a comparative stranger to Folly and her motley
crew of merry wantons in gay Gotham.

The theater, some good music, his athletics, and the hastily
snatched pleasures of vacation, together with the limp reading of
an overwearied man, afforded him such desultory pleasures as fell
in his path.

On his way now to a luncheon engagement with his comrade Ferris,
at Taylor's, his mind was busied only with the care of the daily
treasure trust.

Serenely confident, he swung along, his two score thousand
of dollars being a mere ordinary deposit, in a business which, in