sed putting some of my own millions behind the market. It was as
though the tongue had involuntarily started to lap the chops for blood,
and I scribbled a memo on my mind's black-board, "Think over whether he
does not intend to set traps for your share of the spoils."

CHAPTER XXX

THE MORNING AFTER

It was with a feeling of intense relief that I left Mr. Rogers and
returned to the Waldorf. At last I knew where I "was at": I was to play
a lone hand; my enemies were in front; there were no partners from whose
treacherous knife-blades I should have to protect my back. The path was
clear, and as I examined my position, I felt my old self again. Promptly
I called up my Boston brokers, who were at the Holland House, to say I
would drop in for them on my way downtown, and with a clear plan of
campaign in my mind, I determined to face the breakfasting crowd in the
big cafe downstairs.

Almost immediately I found myself in the centre of a knot of men who
began eagerly to press me for further particulars of the Amalgamated
subscriptions. We all know the story of the comedian informed in the
midst of a performance of his beloved wife's death, who yet must laugh
and antic to the end of the play. I appreciated the heavy-hearted
actor's plight as I surveyed the little throng so vitally interested in
their dollar affairs. I longed to mount a chair and tell them how they
had been duped, but my role called for different lines. It was my part
to feign satisfaction and my duty to keep every cent invested in our
enterprise from shrinking a mill. I pumped as much enthusiasm into my
speech as possible.

"You see what the papers say," I said. "That gives you all the
information I have, for although you may not think it, I have been
spending the night just as the rest of you have--in lands where all
flotations sell away over par. I'm going down to Wall Street just now.
After a while I'll have more to tell you."

The flutter of an eyelash, a hair-breadth of hesitation, a mumbled word
and there may be born in the mind of the investor that instinctive
distrust which is the beginning of panic. In a stock market as in a
powder magazine there are always dread possibilities of explosion, and
he who would survive must have incombustible nerves and an ice-packed
brain; asbestos assurances and an unblushing swagger have averted many
money conflagrations and set prices hill-climbing.

My little congregation had all the fluttering fugitiv