em."

"Why not?"

Had I been a woman I should have clapped my hands to my ears and
screamed, so sudden and bomb-like came those two words.

"He had used some of them and has only $904,000 on hand."

"Only $904,000!"

It is impossible to convey the concentrated scorn and sarcasm Mr. Rogers
infused into these words, and he continued to glare at me for fully a
minute, his eyes as searching as _x_-rays. When that glare shifted I had
a presentiment it would leave me forever a stranger to him, and I made
up my mind to turn on my heel and leave his office without a word. I
felt that he was in the right, and that if I were in his place I'd
glare, too.

Suddenly the expression changed. He said peremptorily: "Lawson, get on
the first train for Philadelphia and bring back those agreements
executed and the $904,000 instead of the $1,500,000."

"Mr. Rogers," I began, but he stopped me with an imperative gesture.

"Don't say a word, but do as I tell you. I warned you you were dealing
with a dog, but you wouldn't have it. Now I'm going to put this trade
through even if I make a fool of myself thereby. You've done your work
and that whelp shall not keep you out of its results. I'm in this now,
and we will see if Addicks can outplay me as well as you. Not another
word. I understand the whole thing."

I returned to Philadelphia deciding once and for all certain things in
regard to Mr. Rogers and others affecting the future of J. Edward
O'Sullivan Addicks; and that night Addicks and I "had it out." I shall
not attempt to reproduce our talk. Suffice it to state that when I
called for the bonds Addicks began to hem and haw, and then I realized
that he had a second time lied to me. We were in his Philadelphia
office, and it was night and we were alone. I demanded the truth, and
finally he told me he had no $904,000 of bonds. As a fact he had not a
single bond. He had used them to the last one and had deceived me for
months. In regard to this interview Addicks has always maintained that I
laid hands upon him, and that he was on the verge of doing some awful
thing, but this is false. What I did was to turn the key in the door and
then, without undue regard to his sensibilities, draw a word-picture of
the position he had placed me in. Also I said what I thought of him.
That is all.

The vast profits which the stock operator makes apparently overnight are
often subjects for the world's wonder and envy. But if the gains are
great, th