The Price | Page 6

custom of giving
himself a quiet half-hour of inviolable seclusion in which to read and
consider his mail. During this sacred interval the stenographer, standing
guard in the outer office, had instructions to deny his chief to callers of
any and every degree. Wherefore, when, at twenty minutes to eleven,

the door of the private office opened to admit a stranger, the president
was justly annoyed.
"Well, sir; what now?" he demanded, impatiently, taking the intruder's
measure in a swift glance shot from beneath his bushy white eyebrows.
The unannounced visitor was a young man of rather prepossessing
appearance, a trifle tall for his breadth of shoulder, fair, with blue eyes
and a curling reddish beard and mustache, the former trimmed to a
point. So much the president was able to note in the appraisive
glance--and to remember afterward.
The caller made no reply to the curt question. He had turned and was
closing the door. There was a quiet insistence in the act that was like
the flick of a whip to Mr. Galbraith's irritation.
"If you have business with me, you'll have to excuse me for a few
minutes," he protested, still more impatiently. "Be good enough to take
a seat in the anteroom until I ring. MacFarland should have told you."
The young man drew up a chair and sat down, ignoring the request as if
he had failed to hear it. Ordinarily Mr. Andrew Galbraith's temper was
equable enough; the age-cooled temper of a methodical gentleman
whose long upper lip was in itself an advertisement of self-control. But
such a deliberate infraction of his rules, coupled with the stony
impudence of the visitor, made him spring up angrily to ring for the
watchman.
The intruder was too quick for him. When his hand sought the
bell-push he found himself looking into the muzzle of a revolver, and
so was fain to fall back into his chair, gasping.
"Ah-h-h!" he stammered. And when the words could be managed: "So
that's it, is it?--you're a robber!"
"No," said the invader of the presidential privacies calmly, speaking for
the first time since his incoming. "I am not a robber, save in your own
very limited definition of the word. I am merely a poor man, Mr.

Galbraith--one of the uncounted thousands--and I want money. If you
call for help, I shall shoot you."
"You--you'd murder me?" The president's large-jointed hands were
clutching the arms of the pivot-chair, and he was fighting manfully for
courage and presence of mind to cope with the terrifying emergency.
"Not willingly, I assure you: I have as great a regard for human life as
you have--but no more. You would kill me this moment in self-defence,
if you could: I shall most certainly kill you if you attempt to give an
alarm. On the other hand, if you prove reasonable and obedient your
life is not in danger. It is merely a question of money, and if you are
amenable to reason----"
"If I'm--but I'm not amenable to your reasons!" blustered the president,
recovering a little from the first shock of terrified astoundment. "I
refuse to listen to them. I'll not have anything to do with you. Go
away!"
The young man's smile showed his teeth, but it also proved that he was
not wholly devoid of the sense of humor.
"Keep your temper, Mr. Galbraith," he advised coolly. "The moment is
mine, and I say you shall listen first and obey afterward. Otherwise you
die. Which is it to be? Choose quickly--time is precious."
The president yielded the first point, that of the receptive ear; but
grudgingly and as one under strict compulsion.
"Well, well, then; out with it. What have you to say for yourself?"
"This: You are rich: you represent the existing order of things. I am
poor, and I stand for my necessity, which is higher than any man-made
law or custom. You have more money than you can possibly use in any
legitimate personal channels: I have not the price of the next meal,
already twenty-four hours overdue. I came here this morning with my
life in my hand to invite you to share with me a portion of that which is
yours chiefly by the right of possession. If you do it, well and good: if

not, there will be a new president of the Bayou State Security. Do I
make myself sufficiently explicit?"
Andrew Galbraith glanced furtively at the paper-weight clock on his
desk. It was nearly eleven, and MacFarland would surely come in on
the stroke of the hour. If he could only fend off the catastrophe for a
few minutes, until help should come. He searched in his pockets and
drew forth a handful of coins.
"You say you are hungry: I'm na that well off that I