Monson out at the stables where he
can't annoy you. Or you can get me on the 'long distance.' Good-by. Good
luck."

And I nodded carelessly and friendlily to her, and went away, enjoying
the pleasure of having startled her into visible astonishment. "There's
a better game than icy hostility, you very young, young lady," said I to
myself, "and that game is friendly indifference."

Alva would be with her. So she was secure for the present and my mind was
free for "finance."

At that time the two most powerful men in finance were Galloway and
Roebuck. In Spain I once saw a fight between a bull and a tiger--or, rather
the beginning of a fight. They were released into a huge iron cage. After
circling it several times in the same direction, searching for a way out,
they came face to face. The bull tossed the tiger; the tiger clawed the
bull. The bull roared; the tiger screamed. Each retreated to his own side
of the cage. The bull pawed and snorted as if he could hardly wait to get
at the tiger; the tiger crouched and quivered and glared murderously, as if
he were going instantly to spring upon the bull. But the bull did not rush,
neither did the tiger spring. That was the Roebuck-Galloway situation.

How to bait Tiger Galloway to attack Bull Roebuck--that was the problem I
must solve, and solve straightway. If I could bring about war between the
giants, spreading confusion over the whole field of finance and filling all
men with dread and fear, there was a chance, a bare chance, that in the
confusion I might bear off part of my fortune. Certainly, conditions would
result in which I could more easily get myself intrenched again; then, too,
there would be a by no means small satisfaction in seeing Roebuck clawed
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 that 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, o