he's in the Dartmouth Building. He isn't doing it on his own hook, but I
don't know who he is doing it for. Somebody wants that stock mighty bad.
There isn't a great deal of it lying around, though."

"Do you think that Thompson--" began the secretary.

"Thompson would be glad to see me out and himself in," said Jim Weeks,
"and he leads Wing and Powers around by the nose, but he can't swing
enough stock to hurt anything at next election. I don't believe it's he
that's buying. Thompson hasn't got sand enough for that. He'll never
fight."

There was a moment's pause. Jim walked over to the ticker and looked back
along the ribbon of paper. "It's quoted at 68-1/2 this morning," he said,
"but no sales to amount to anything."

"You might go over and talk to Wing," he went on. "You can find out
anything he knows if you go at it right. I don't believe there's anything
there. However, I'd like to know just what they are doing. You'd better do
it now. Send Pease in when you go out, will you?"

Harvey slipped the blue envelope from the bottom of the pile of letters,
called the stenographer, and started out. He read the note while he was
waiting for the elevator.

The M. & T. is a local single-track road, about two hundred miles long,
running between the cities of Manchester and Truesdale. The former is on
the main line of the Northern, and the latter on the C. & S.C., both of
which are trunk lines from Chicago to the West. The M. & T. was not a
money-making affair; it had cost a lot of money, its stock was away