's business was few people knew. He kept an army of clerks.
He had the largest collection of file cabinets possessed by any three
business houses in the City, he had an enormous post bag, and both he
and his clerks kept regulation business hours. His beginnings, however,
were well known.

He had been a stockbroker's clerk, with a passion for collecting
clippings mainly dealing with political, geographical, and
meteorological conditions obtaining in those areas wherein the great
Joint Stock Companies of the earth were engaged in operations. He had
gradually built up a service of correspondence all over the world.

The first news of labor trouble on a gold field came to him, and his
brokers indicated his view upon the situation in that particular area by
"bearing" the stock of the affected company.

If his Liverpool agents suddenly descended upon the Cotton Exchange and
began buying May cotton in enormous quantities, the initiated knew that
Saul Arthur Mann had been awakened from his slumbers by a telegram
describing storm havoc in the cotton belt of the United States of
America. When a curious blight fell upon the coffee plantations of
Ceylon, a six-hundred-word cablegram describing the habits and
characteristics of the minute insect which caused the blight reached
Saul Arthur Mann at two o'clock in the afternoon, and by three o'clock
the price of coffee had jumped.

When, on another occasion, Senor Almarez, the President of Cacura, had
thrown a glass of wine in the face of his brother-in-law, Captain
Vassalaro, Saul Arthur Mann had jumped into the market and beaten down
all Cacura stocks, which were fairly high as a result of excellent crops
and secure government. He "beared" them because he knew that Vassalaro
was a dead shot, and that the inevitable duel would deprive Cacura of
the best president it had had for twenty years, and that the way would
be open for the election of Sebastian Romelez, who had behind him a
certain group of German financiers who desired to exploit the country in
their own peculiar fashion.

He probably built up a very considerable fortune, and it is certain
that he extended the range of his inquiries until the making of money by
means of his curious information bureau became only a secondary
consideration. He had a marvelous memory, which was supplemented by his
system of filing. He would go to work patiently for months, and spend
sums of money out of all proportion to the value of the inf