stool-pigeon directors in banks
and insurance companies whose funds they staked in their big gambling
operations, they taking almost all the profits, and the depositors and
policy holders taking almost all the risk. It had never once occurred
to me to have any feeling of any kind about Tom, or in any way to take
him into my calculations as to Anita. He was, to my eyes, too
obviously a pale understudy of his powerful and fascinating brother.
Whenever I thought of him as the man Anita fancied she loved, I put it
aside instantly. "The kind of man a woman _really_ cares for," I would
say to myself, "is the measure of her true self. But not the kind of
man she _imagines_ she cares for."

Tom went on; Mowbray stopped. We shook hands, and exchanged
commonplaces in the friendliest way--I was harboring no resentment
against him, and I wished him to realize that his assault had bothered
me no more than the buzzing and battering of a summer fly. "I've been
trying to get in to see you," said he. "I wanted to explain about that
unfortunate Textile deal."

This, when the assault on me had burst out with fresh energy the day
after he landed from Europe! I could scarcely believe that his vanity,
his confidence in his own skill at underground work, could so delude
him. "Don't bother," said I. "All that's ancient history."

But he had thought out some lies he regarded as particularly
creditable to his ingenuity; he was not to be deprived of the pleasure
of telling them. So I was compelled to listen; and, being in an
indulgent mood, I did not spoil his pleasure by letting him see or
suspect my unbelief. If he could have looked into my mind, as I stood
there in an attitude of patient attention, I think even his
self-complacence would have been put out of countenance. You may
admire the exploits of a "gentleman" cracksman or pickpocket, if you
hear or read them with only their ingenuity put before you. But _see_
a "gentleman" liar or thief at his sneaking, cowardly work, and
admiration is impossible. As Langdon lied on, as I studied his cheap,
vulgar exhibition of himself, he all unconscious, I thought: "Beneath
that very thin surface of yours, you're a poor cowardly creature--you
and all your fellow bandits. No; bandit is too grand a word to apply
to this game of 'high finance.' It's really on the level with the game
of the fellow that waits for a dark night, slips into the barnyard,
poisons the watch dog, bores an auger hole in the gr