"I don't know anything about that. I do know that some people are trying to make things hot for Sid Prale, and he doesn't deserve it, and——"
"Pardon me, if I interrupt!" the masked man said. "You say that he does not deserve it. Do you believe that influential persons would persecute him if he did not deserve it?"
"Sid Prale doesn't know what it is all about!"
"That is what he told the valet, too. But believe me when I say that he does know what it is all about, and is deceiving you when he says otherwise."
"What has all this to do with me?" Jim Farland demanded. "Did you have me brought here to argue the case with me?"
"I had you brought here because I want you to cease working for Sidney Prale. I want you to go back to him and tell him that you are done."
"As Coadley, the attorney, did?"
"Exactly!"
"Your people must be men of influence if they can buy off Coadley like that!"
"Perhaps Coadley was shown that it would wreck his future if he continued working for Prale."