bought Fabian out. As for my wife, she couldn't run it, and--"

"You could sell it," interrupted Tarboe.

"Sell it! Sell it!" said Grier wildly. "Sell it to whom?"

"To Belloc," was the malicious reply. The demon of anger seized the old
man.

"You say that to me--you--that I should sell to Belloc! By hell, I'd
rather burn every stick and board and tree I've got--sweep it out of
existence, and die a beggar than sell it to Belloc!" Froth gathered at
the corners of his mouth, there was tumult in his eyes. "Belloc!
Knuckle down to him! Sell out to him!"

"Well, if you got a profit of twenty per cent. above what it's worth it
might be well. That'd be a triumph, not a defeat."

"I see what you mean," said John Grier, the passion slowly going from his
eyes. "I see what you mean, but that ain't my way. I want this business
to live. I want Grier's business to live long after John Grier has gone.
That's why I was going to say to you that in my will I'm going to leave
you this business, you to pay my wife every year twenty thousand
dollars." "And your son, Carnac?"

"Not a sou-not a sou--not a sou--nothing--that's what I meant at first.
But I've changed my mind now. I'm going to leave you the business, if
you'll make a bargain with me. I want you to run it for three years, and
take for yourself all the profits over the twenty thousand dollars a year
that goes to my wife. There's a lot of money in it, the way you'd work