ith that unfathomable mystery of
sex-affinity that every man laughs at and mocks another man for believing
in, until he has himself felt it drawing him against will, against reason,
and sense, and interest, over the brink of destruction yawning before his
eyes--drawing him as the magnet-mountain drew Sindbad and his ship. And I
say to you that those who can defy and resist that compulsion are not more,
but less, than man or woman; and their fancied strength is in reality a
deficiency. Looking calmly back upon my follies under her spell, I think
the better of myself for them. It is the splendid follies of life that
redeem it from vulgarity.

But--it is not in me to despair. There never yet was an impenetrable siege
line; to escape, it is only necessary by craft or by chance to hit upon the
moment and the spot for the sortie. "Ruined!" I said aloud. "Trapped and
trimmed like the stupidest sucker that ever wandered into Wall Street! A
dead one, no doubt; but I'll see to it that they don't enjoy my funeral."

XVII. A GENTEEL "HOLD-UP"

In my childhood at home, my father was often away for a week or longer,
working or looking for work. My mother had a notion that a boy should
be punished only by his father; so, whenever she caught me in what she
regarded as a serious transgression, she used to say: "You will get a
good whipping for this, when your father comes home." At first I used to
wait passively, suffering the torments of ten thrashings before the "good
whipping" came to pass. But soon my mind began to employ the interval more
profitably. I would scheme to escape execution of sentence; and, though my
mother was a determined woman, many's the time I contrived to change her
mind. I am not recommending to parents the system of delay in execution
of sentence; but I must say that in my case it was responsible for an
invaluable discipline. For example, the Textile tangle.

I knew I was in all human probability doomed to go down before the Stock
Exchange had been open an hour the next morning. All Textile stocks must
start many points higher than they had been at the close, must go steadily
and swiftly up. Entangled as my reserve resources were in the Coal deal, I
should have no chance to cover my shorts on any terms less than the loss
of all I had. At most, I could hope only to save myself from criminal
bankruptcy.

And now my early training in coolly and calmly studying how to avert
execution of sentence came int