lawed and bitten in
punishment for having plotted against me. Mutual fear had kept these
two at peace for five years, and most considerate and polite about
each other's "rights." But while our country's industrial territory is
vast, the interests of the few great controllers who determine wages
and prices for all are equally vast, and each plutocrat is tormented
incessantly by jealousy and suspicion; not a day passes without
conflicts of interest which adroit diplomacy could turn into ferocious
warfare. And in this matter of monopolizing the Coal, despite
Roebuck's earnest assurances to Galloway that the combine was purely
defensive, and was really concerned only with the labor question,
Galloway, a great manufacturer, or, rather, a huge levier of the taxes
of dividends and interest upon manufacturing enterprises, could not
but be uneasy.

Before I rose that morning I had a tentative plan for stirring him to
action. I was elaborating it on the way downtown in my electric. It
shows how badly Anita was crippling my brain, that not until I was
almost at my office did it occur to me: "That was a tremendous luxury
Roebuck indulged his conscience in last night. It isn't like him to
forewarn a man, even when he's sure he can't escape. Though his
prayers were hot in his mouth, still, it's strange he didn't try to
fool me. In fact, it's suspicious. In fact----"

Suspicious? The instant the idea was fairly before my mind, I knew I
had let his canting fool me once more.

I entered my offices, feeling that the blow had already fallen; and I
was surprised, but not relieved, when I found everything calm. "But
fall it will within an hour or so--before I can move to avert it,"
said I to myself.

And fall it did. At eleven o'clock, just as I was setting out to make
my first move toward heating old Galloway's heels for the warpath, Joe
came in with the news: "A general lockout's declared in the coal
regions. The operators have stolen a march on the men, who, so they
allege, were secretly getting ready to strike. By night every coal
road will be tied up and every mine shut down."

Joe knew our coal interests were heavy, but he did not dream his news
meant that before the day was over we should be bankrupt and not able
to pay fifteen cents on the dollar. However, he knew enough to throw
him into a fever of fright. He watched my calmness with terror. "Coal
stocks are dropping like a thermometer in a cold wave," he said, like
a firema