family."

"No; but the Colthwaite Company employs a good many engineers," Tom
suggested.

"Colthwaite?" repeated Ransom, now on his guard. "I have nothing to do
with that concern."

"No?" asked Tom, as though greatly astonished. "Why, that's strange."

"Why is it strange?"

"Why," Tom Reade rejoined amiably, "everyone connected with the A. G. &
N. M. who knows anything at all about you credits you with being a
member of the Colthwaite Company's gloom department."

"Gloom department?" gasped Ransom, with a wholly innocent-looking face.
"Oh, all right. I'll bite. What is a gloom department, anyway?"

"It's a comparatively recent piece of business apparatus," smiled Tom.
"It is employed by big corporations as a club with which to hit smaller
crowds that want some of the business of life. The gloom department
might be called the bureau of knocking, or the hit-in-the-neck shift."

"Is that what you accuse me of doing for the Colthwaite Company?" asked
Fred Ransom, his scowl deepening.

"Oh, the accusation isn't all mine," Tom assured him unconcernedly.
"Some of it belongs elsewhere."