"Beating you up," was the cool answer. "I could kill you with my hands in five minutes. You're no Wolf. You're just mere yellow dog, the part of you that isn't plain skunk. They told me to expect this of you; but I didn't believe, and I came to see. They were right. You were all that they said. Well, I must get along out of this. It smells like a den of foxes. It stinks."
He paused with his hand on the door knob and looked back. He had not succeeded in making Regan lose his temper.
"And what are you going to do about it?" the latter jeered.
"If you'll permit me to get my broker on your 'phone maybe you'll learn," Francis replied.
"Go to it, my laddy buck," Regan conceded, then, with a wave of suspicion, "I'll get him for you myself."
And, having ascertained that Bascom was really at the other end of the line, he turned the receiver over to Francis. "You were right," the latter assured Bascom. "Regan's all you said and worse. Go right on with your plan of campaign. We've got him where we want him, though the old fox won't believe it for a moment. He thinks he's going to strip me, clean me out." Francis paused to think up the strongest way of carrying on his bluff, then continued. "I'll tell you something you don't know. He's the one who manoauvred the raid from the beginning. So now you know who we're going to bury."
And, after a little more of similar talk, he hung up. "You see," he explained, again from the door, "you were so crafty that we couldn't make out who it was. Why hell, Regan, we were prepared to give a walloping to some unknown that had several times your strength. And now that it's you, it's easy. We were prepared to strain. But with you it will be a walk-over. To-morrow, around this time, there's going to be a funeral right Here in your office and you're not going to be one of the mourners. You're going to be the corpse and a not-nice looking financial corpse you'll be when we get done with you."
"The dead spit of E.H.M.," the Wolf grinned. "Lord, how he could pull off a bluff!"
"It's a pity he didn't bury you and save me all the trouble," was Francis' parting shot.
"And all the expense," Regan flung after him. "It's going to be pretty expensive for you, and there isn't going to be any funeral from this place."