by those who
deceive themselves before trying to deceive others; and James' cupidity
and conceit were enormous. He ended by persuading himself that his
house, directed and protected by his invincible self, could carry with
ease the burden of both loads. Indeed, the Great Lakes gamble now
seemed to him a negligible trifle in the comparison--what were its
profits of a few hundred thousands beside the millions that would
surely be his when the great Woolens Monopoly, bought in for a small
fraction of its value, should be controlled by a group of which he
would be the dominant personality?

He ventured; he won. He was now secure--was not Dumont dispossessed,
despoiled, dying?

At eleven o'clock on that Monday morning he was seated upon his
embossed leather throne, under his grandfather's portrait, immersed in
an atmosphere of self-adoration. At intervals he straightened himself,
distended his chest, elevated his chin and glanced round with an air of
haughty dignity, though there was none to witness and to be impressed.
In Wall Street there is a fatuity which, always epidemic among the
small fry, infects wise and foolish, great and small, whenever a
paretic dream of an enormous haul at a single cast of the net happens
to come true. This paretic fatuity now had possession of James; in
imagination he was crowning and draping himself with multi-millions,
power and fame. At intervals he had been calling up on the telephone
at his elbow Zabriskie, the firm's representative on 'Change, and had
been spurring him on to larger and more frequent "sales" of Great Lakes.

His telephone bell rang. He took down the receiver--"Yes, it's Mr.
Fanning-Smith--oh--Mr. Fanshaw----" He listened, in his face for the
first few seconds all the pitying amusement a small, vain man can put
into an expression of superiority. "Thank you, Mr. Fanshaw," he said.
"But really, it's impossible. WE are perfectly secure. No one would
venture to disturb US." And he pursed his lips and swelled his fat
cheeks in the look for which his father was noted. But, after
listening a few seconds longer, his eyes had in them the beginnings of
timidity.

He turned his head so that he could see the ticker-tape as it reeled
off. His heavy cheeks slowly relaxed. "Yes, yes," he said hurriedly.

"I'll just speak to our Mr. Zabriskie. Good-by." And he rang off and
had his telephone connected with the telephone Zabriskie was using at
the Stock Exchange. All