ing the highest profit. If circumstances shift this from the side
of their enlistment to that of an adversary, their arms and hearts go
where their pockets lead. It must be remembered that the Hessian who
"down-town" is steeped in perfidy, trickery, and fraud, may appear
before the "up-town" world as a Christian citizen and an example of
domestic virtue. The type is not uncommon nowadays of the pleasant and
proper gentleman, prompt to knock down any one daring to asperse his
veracity after five any evening and all day Sunday, but who considers
himself free to engage in any dirty juggle or misrepresentation from 9
A.M. to 4.45 P.M. In office hours you run no risk in calling him a liar,
for then he'll laugh at the joke and tell you business is business.
However, the foregoing episode was an experience that left an indelible
impression on my mind, and the hatred and disgust it engendered
precipitated events out of which in the course of years came the
offences and injuries that are responsible for the story of "Frenzied
Finance."

The immediate results of my reappearance were not startling. Rogers
raved at Addicks and especially at Whitney, but he was too old a student
of men, and the monkeys Dame Fortune makes of them, to sulk over the
facts he could not remedy. He soon resumed his former attitude of
waiting for something to turn up, which indeed he had maintained ever
since my unsuccessful effort to make terms with him.

Fate had not yet tired, however, of playing shuttlecock with our hopes.
The world learned one morning of a new gas called acetylene, clear,
brilliant, cheap, and simply made from calcium carbide. It would surely
revolutionize gas-making the world over, and the company which could
secure the right to it would have those who could not at its mercy.
Addicks moved like a flash to gather in the advantage, and the
announcement that the new gas had been proved a success was coupled in
the press with the news that the Bay State Gas had captured the
invention for New England, and was to pay millions for it. This did give
a boost to our securities, and for a time it looked as though we had
clinched our success with another rivet. What Addicks had done was this:
He had bought the right, subject to the test of a big public
demonstration. For this demonstration a fine flare-up was arranged.
Eminent mayors, counsellors, and gas magnates were to attend in
multitude, and if the invention met its engagements, there woul