not
keep within laws. That very frankness was an advertisement. It was
something different. It struck home where it was meant to strike--among
small and unfledged investors. It roped them in by thousands. The
shares were ten dollars each, and non-assessable. Five out of six
orders were from one to five shares; ninety-nine out of every hundred
were not above ten shares. It was damnable. The very people for whom I
wanted the north to fight had been humbugged to the tune of a million
and a quarter dollars. Within a year Brokaw and the others had floated
a scheme which was worse than any trust, for the trusts pay back a part
of their steals in dividends. And _I_ was responsible! Do you realize
that, Greggy? It was I who started the project. It was my reports from
the north which chiefly induced people to buy. And this company--a
company of robbers licensed under the law--I am its founder and its
vice-president!"

Philip dropped back into his chair. The face that he turned to Gregson
was damp with perspiration, though the room was chilly.

"You stayed in," said Gregson.

"I had to. There wasn't a loophole left open to me. There wasn't a
single point at which I could bring attack against Brokaw and the
others. They were six veritable Bismarcks of deviltry and shrewdness.
They hadn't over-stepped the law. They had sold a million and a quarter
of stock on a hundred-thousand-dollar investment, but Brokaw only
laughed when I raged at this. 'Why, Philip,' he said, 'we value our
license alone at over a million!' And there was no law which could
prevent them from placing that value upon it, or more. There was one
thing that I could do--and only one. I could resign, decline to accept
my stock and the hundred thousand, and publicly announce why I had
broken off my connections with the company. I was about to do this when
cooler judgment prevailed. It occurred to me that there would have to
be an accounting. The company might sell a million and a quarter of
stock--but in the end there would have to be an accounting. If I was
out of the game it would be easily made. If I was in--well, do you see,
Greggy? There was still a chance of making the company win out as a
legitimate enterprise, even though it began under the black flag of
piratical finance and fraud. Brokaw and the others were astonished at
the stand I took. It was like throwing a big, ripe plum into the fire
Brokaw was the first to hedge. He came over to my side in a privat