m, things
were never as _you_ pleased, but always as _he_ pleased.

"Next time you want to dig a mine under anybody," I went on, "don't hire
Saxe. Really I feel sorry for you--to have such a clever scheme messed by
such an ass."

"If you don't mind, I'd like to know what you're talking about," said he,
with his patient, bored look.

"As you and Roebuck own the governor, I know your little law ends my little
canal."

"Still I don't know what you're talking about," drawled he. "You are always
suspecting everybody of double-dealing. I gather that this is another
instance of your infirmity. Really, Blacklock, the world isn't wholly made
up of scoundrels."

"I know that," said I. "And I will even admit that its scoundrels are
seldom made up wholly of scoundrelism. Even Roebuck would rather do the
decent thing, if he can do it without endangering his personal interests.
As for you--I regard you as one of the decentest men I ever knew--outside
of business. And even there, I believe you'd keep your word, as long as the
other fellow kept his."

"Thank you," said he, bowing ironically. "This flattery makes me suspect
you've come to get something."

"On the contrary," said I. "I want to give something. I want to give you my
coal mines."

"I thought you'd see that our offer was fair," said he. "And I'm glad you
have changed your mind about quarreling with your best friends. We can be
useful to you, you to us. A break would be silly."

"That's the way it looks to me," I assented. And I decided that my sharp
talk to Roebuck had set them to estimating my value to them.

"Sam Ellersly," Langdon presently remarked, "tells me he's campaigning hard
for you at the Travelers. I hope you'll make it. We're rather a slow crowd;
a few men like you might stir things up."

I am always more than willing to give others credit for good sense and good
motives. It was not vanity, but this disposition to credit others with
sincerity and sense, that led me to believe him, both as to the Coal matter
and as to the Travelers Club. "Thanks, Langdon," I said; and that he might
look no further for my motive, I added: "I want to get into that club much
as the winner of a race wants the medal that belongs to him. I've built
myself up into a rich man, into one of the powers in finance, and I feel
I'm entitled to recognition."

"I don't quite follow you," he said. "I can't see that you'll be either
better or worse for getting into the Travelers."