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104 "A hundred thousand! Going at a hundred thousand! Going at a hundred thousand! What name, sir?"

"Peter Mackeller."

"Going to Mr. Mackeller for a hundred thousand dollars. Last call. Any advance on a hundred thousand?"

"Half a million dollars!"

The words came like the crack of a whip, and every man in the room turned round. There by the door stood the redoubtable, much-pictured form and spectacled face of P. G. Flannigan. Peter was stricken dumb and looked with despair at his comrade behind him.

"Half a million dollars," echoed the auctioneer as if nothing particular had happened. Lord Stranleigh made no reply to Mackeller's mute appeal, but rose with a smile on his face, tip-toed his way to the back of the room, and held out his hand to P. G. Flannigan.

"How are you, Mr. Flannigan?" he said, in a voice so low that none but the man to whom it was addressed could hear. "I am Lord Stranleigh of Wychwood, but I trust to your discretion that you will not give me away, as the saying is."

Flannigan's glasses seemed to flutter and blink.

"The deuce you say!" muttered Flannigan. "Then who—then who?"

"Who raised your holdings of stock forty mil-