Jewel Weed

"You make money out o' me," said Billy sourly. "You keep me under your

big fat ugly thumb. I guess I can run this business alone. I got all the

strings pretty well in my own hand."

"All right, Barry. I'll be sorry to be on the other side, but if you say

so, all right."

Barry swore a moment under his breath and changed the subject. So

matters went on, with Barry still subservient, but growing daily more

inclined to believe himself the autocrat he seemed, daily a little less

cautious, a little more fixed in his assurance that the officeholders,

the delegates and the saloon men constituted, in themselves, a

sufficient prop for his dominion, and that Murdock was a nuisance.

"Of course, it's to his interest to keep me under," he said to himself,

"and I dunno' whether I'm a fool to let him do it, or whether I'm a fool

to try to break away."

He began to try flyers on his own hook; he gathered many rake-offs of

which he said nothing to his mentor; he drank a little more and splurged

a little more and looked a little more like a bulldog and less like a

man. That the spirit of rebellion was growing up and that the pawn began

to take credit to itself for the position of power in which it was

placed, came gradually home to Mr. Murdock. It made him at first

annoyed, then anxious. So it was that the confidence bred from years of

business coöperation drove him this night to look up his old partner.

"Evening, Early," he said as the door closed behind him. "Beastly cold

night out. Wish you'd order me a little something hot to induce me to

stay by this comfortable fire of yours."

Mr. Early waved his hand toward a chair and settled himself without

ceremony. There was this comfort in Murdock: they had known each other

too long for pose, and, though the old hook-and-eye partnership was

dissolved, and Mr. Early had soared into the realms of Art, they were

still closely bound by common interests. So Sebastian met him with

cheerful resignation.

"Sit down, Jim," he said. "I don't mind a nip myself. What's up?"

"What's down, you'd better ask. Lord save us! What's that?" exclaimed

Mr. Murdock, as he caught sight of the lurid lady lying amid the litter

on the table.

"That's the cover of my next magazine. Never mind it. It's not in your

line."

"Well, I should say not," said the other with a slow grin. "I've been

pretty much vituperated for some of my business deals, but I never

sprung a thing like that on the public. 'Forget thyself!' That's good,

Early." He winked a wink that came more from the soul than from the eye.