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 our chances. Slengels had sold Sam Metten; they had him sewed up. We couldn't even reach him. But Sam didn't deliver the order. Brother Phil blocked it."

"Did he?" said Mr. Rountree. "That's good; but I'm not much surprised, Lowry. He was very friendly with me, when you had him here."

Ellen saw Mr. Lowry smother a smile. "Are you writing Jay this morning or, by any chance, phoning him at Tryston?"

"Justin?" asked Mr. Rountree. "What has Justin to do with the Metten account?"

Mr. Lowry ventured, in the emergency, upon unusual frankness.

"Phil Metten's friendliness toward you, which you've remembered, was only a sort of hangover from his enthusiasm over Jay, to whom he was talking in the waiting room. Phil certainly fell for that boy. I could hardly get him to come in to see you. He wanted to fan golf with Jay. Phil is one of those golfers who took it up in time to shoot a steady hundred and twenty on a public course and would sell his shoes to be in an exclusive club, and get his wife and daughters in. He was asking Jay about a good place for his family. Jay told him about Tryston.

"Now on Christmas morning, the papers say that Jay and his wife are at Tryston; on Christmas night, Phil Metten and family leave town, for Tryston. At the same time, Sam Metten is stopped from delivering a halfmillion-dollar twelve-month order to the Slengels. I can't see that simply as a coincidence."

"Do you imagine," inquired Mr. Rountree, coldly, "that my son had anything to do with it?"