came back. At last he smiled. "That's it," he said to himself, "I'll try
to rent him that vacant suite in our office building."

When West had made up his mind that the party of four were not to meet in
Wing's office, he had decided to see if they were in McNally's. He could
not ask for Wing, of course, so he asked for McNally and trusted to the
spur of the moment for a pretext for his call. Now that McNally's absence
had enabled him to think of one he took a long breath of satisfaction.
He
had accomplished what he had set out to accomplish, and contrary to
Jim Weeks's expressed expectation. There was no doubt that it was a
combination of the C. & S.C. and Thompson's gang that was booming the
M. & T. Moreover there was no doubt as to their next move. "But it won't
work," he thought. "Jim owns about half of Tillman City, and anyway
they'll never sell when our stock is jumping up the way it is."

And having settled this important matter he switched his train of thought
off on another track. It reached Truesdale in a very short time, but it
had nothing to do with M. & T., or with Mr. McNally. He took the note out
of his pocket and read it through twice, and then smoked over it
comfortably for some time before he began vaguely to wonder why Mr.
McNally didn't come back. Five minutes later he glanced at his cigar ash.
It was an inch and a half long. "That means twenty minutes," he said
thoughtfully, and then it dawned on him that things had happened which
were not down on the schedule.

He walked quickly to the telephone, and a moment later Pease was talking
to him.

"No," said the stenographer; "Mr. Weeks went out to lunch about an hour