the amounts he could command in an emergency. There was a mystery in
the very fact that the amount he could command was unknown. I have said
that his accumulation was sudden; it was probably so only in appearance.
For a dozen years, by operations, various, secret, untiring, he had been
laying the foundations for his success, and in the maturing of his
schemes it became apparent how vast his transactions had been. For years
he had been known as a rising man, and suddenly he became an important
man. The telegraph, the newspapers, chronicled his every movement;
whatever he said was construed like a Delphic oracle. The smile or the
frown of Jay Hawker himself had not a greater effect upon the market. The
Southwest operation, which made so much noise in the courts, was merely
an incident. In the lives of many successful men there are such
incidents, which they do not care to have inquired into, turning-points
that one slides over in the subsequent gilded biography, or, as it is
called, the nickel-plated biography. The uncomfortable A. and B.
bondholders had been settled with and silenced, after a fashion. In the
end, Mrs. Fletcher had received from the company nearly the full amount
of her investment. I always thought this was due to Margaret, but I made
no inquiries. There were many people who had no confidence in Henderson,
but generally his popularity was not much affected, and whatever was said
of him in private, his social position was almost as unchallenged as his
financial. It was a great point in his favor that he was very generous to
his family and his friends, and his public charities began to be talked
of. Nothing could have been more admirable than a paper which appeared
about this time in one of the leading magazines, written by a great
capitalist during a strike in his "system," off the uses of wealth and
the responsibilities of rich men. It amused Henderson and Uncle Jerry,
and Margaret sent it, marked, to her aunt. Uncle Jerry said it was very
timely, for at the moment there was a report that Hollowell and Henderson
had obtained possession of one of the great steamship lines in connection
with their trans-continental system. I thought at the time that I should
like to have heard Carmen's comments on the paper.

The continued friendly alliance of Rodney Henderson and Jerry Hollowell
was a marvel to the public, which expected to read any morning that the
one had sold out the other, or unloaded in a sly deal. The