my nerves had been too long
accustomed to the feel of the harsh facts of life. It is evidence of the
shrewdness of the old fellow at character-reading that he wasted none of
his silk and velvet pretenses upon me, and so saved his time and mine.
Probably he wished me to see that I need have no timidity or false shame in
dealing with him, that when the time came to talk business I was free to
talk it in my own straight fashion.

"Glad to come," said I, wishing to be rid of him, now that my point was
gained. "We'll let the account stand open for the present--I rather think
your stocks are going up. Give my regards to--the ladies, please,
especially to Miss Anita."

He winced, but thanked me graciously; gave me his soft, fine hand to shake
and departed, as eager to be off as I to be rid of him. "Sunday next--at
eight," were his last words. "Don't fail us"--that in the tone of a king
addressing some obscure person whom he had commanded to court. It may be
that old Ellersly was wholly unconscious of his superciliousness, fancied
he was treating me as if I were almost an equal; but I suspect he rather
accentuated his natural manner, with the idea of impressing upon me that
in our deal he was giving at least as much as I.

I recall that I thought about him for several minutes after he was
gone--philosophized on the folly of a man's deliberately weaving a net to
entangle himself. As if any man was ever caught in any net not of his own
weaving and setting; as if I myself were not just then working at the last
row of meshes of a net in which I was to ensnare myself.

My petty and inevitable success with that helpless creature added
amazingly, ludicrously, to that dangerous elation which, as I can now see,
had been growing in me ever since the day Roebuck yielded so readily to my
demands as to National Coal. The whole trouble with me was that up to that
time I had won all my victories by the plainest kind of straightaway hard
work. I was imagining myself victor in contests of wit against wit, when,
in fact, no one with any especial equipment of brains had ever opposed me;
all the really strong men had been helping me because they found me useful.
Too easy success--there is the clue to the wild folly of my performances in
those days, a folly that seems utterly inconsistent with the reputation for
shrewdness I had, and seemed to have earned.

I can find a certain small amount of legitimate excuse for my falling under
Langdon's s