Here was a situation indeed! To be occupying the most expensive
suite in the hotel of a man who wished to lend him money, to be
unable to pay one day's rent therefore, and yet to be stopped from
accepting aid. There was a grim irony about it, for a fact. Then,
too, the seed he had sown in banking circles, and his luncheon
with the mayor! Haviland had a sense of humor; it would make a
story too good to keep--the new oil operator, the magnificent and
mysterious New York financier, a "deadhead" at the Ajax. Oh,
murder!

"Well, name your poison! Isn't there something, anything we can do
for you?" Haviland repeated.

"There is, decidedly." Gray smiled his warm appreciation of the
tender. "If it is not too great a drain upon the Dietz millions,
you may keep a supply of cut flowers in my room. I'm passionately
fond of roses, and I should like to have my vases filled every morning."

"You shall dwell in a perfumed bridal bower."

Gray paused at the door to light one of those sixty-cent cigars
and between puffs observed: "Please assure Mr. Dietz that--his
obligation is squared and that I am--deeply touched. I shall revel
in the scent of those flowers."

That evening, when Calvin Gray, formally and faultlessly attired,
strolled into the Ajax dining room he was conscious of attracting
no little attention. For one thing, few of the other guests were
in evening dress, and also that article in the _Post_, which he
had read with a curiously detached amusement, had been of a nature