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 "I don't," she snapped proudly. "And I won't. We have plenty."

Tony felt a thrill of satisfaction. They would never know, of course, that their prosperity was due to him. But he was glad that he had been able to make them comfortable.

"All right, then—girlie," he said slowly. "And just remember that you're the only person that ever tried to kill Tony Camonte and lived to tell about it."

Still staring at him curiously, a perplexed frown wrinkling her brows, she finally departed. Tony heaved a long sigh. Well, that was over.

Abruptly he switched his agile, daring mind back to the matter which had become an obsession with him—the wreaking of vengeance upon the officials to whom he had paid so much but who, in time of crisis, had betrayed him. And then he realized that there was something bigger to all this than venting his personal spite upon these officials who had betrayed not only him but their trust.

For the first time in his hectic life he felt the social impulse which is, at once, the cause and the result of civilization—the realization that the wel­fare of mankind was more important than his own