is worked and the men who work it. Tell me if there is any
consideration due Wall Street and its heart-and-soul butchers at the hands
of honest men."

"I don't know what you mean, Bob. What are you driving at?"

"Never mind what I am driving at. I ask you whether, if an honest man knew
how to beat Wall Street at its own game, he should hesitate to beat
it--hesitate because of anything connected with conscience or morals? You
saw what Barry Conant was able to do to us that day simply by standing on
the floor of the Stock Exchange and outstaying me in opening and closing
his mouth. You saw he was able to sell Sugar to a point so low that I was
obliged to let go of our 150,000 shares at eight to ten million dollars
less than we could have got for them if we could have held them until
to-day. Because of this trick his clients, the 'System,' instead of us,
make five to seven millions."

"I don't follow you, Bob. I know that Barry Conant was able to do this
because he had more money behind him than you."

"You think so, do you, Jim? That is the way it looks to you, but I tell
you money had nothing to do with it. Nothing had to do with it but the
fiendish system of fraud and trickery upon which the whole stock-gambling
structure is reared. Nothing entered into the whole business but the
trickery of stock-gambling as conducted to-day. It was only a question,
Jim, of a man's opening and closing his mouth and spitting out words. From
the minute Barry Conant came into that crowd until he left and we were
ruined, he showed no money, no anything that I did not show. From the very
nature of the business he could not. He simply said 'Sold' oftener and
longer than I said 'Buy.' He may have had money back of him, or he may
only have had nerve. God Almighty is the only one who can tell, for when
Conant was through he was able to buy back at 90 the 50,000 shares he sold
me at 175, the 50,000 that broke my back. Jim, if I had known as much that
day as I do now I would have stood in that crowd and bought all the stock
he sold at 180 and I would have stood there buying until hell froze over
or he quit; then I would have made him rebuy it at 280 or 2,080, and I
would have broken him and all his Camemeyer and 'Standard Oil' backers;
broken them to their last crime-covered dollar."

"Bob, what are you talking about? It is all Chinese to me. I cannot get
head or tail of what you are driving at."

"I know you can't, Jim, neither could Wall S