ck-Langdon clique; still others thought I was simply hunting
notoriety. All were inclined to accept as a sufficient denial of my
charges Melville's dignified refusal "to notice any attack from a quarter
so discredited."

As my electric whirled into Wall Street, I saw the crowd in front of the
Textile Building, a dozen policemen keeping it in order. I descended amid
cheers, and entered my offices through a mob struggling to shake hands with
me--and, in my ignorance of mob mind, I was delighted and inspired! Just
why a man who knows men, knows how wishy-washy they are as individuals,
should be influenced by a demonstration from a mass of them, is hard to
understand. But the fact is indisputable. They fooled me then; they could
fool me again, in spite of all I have been through. There probably wasn't
one in that mob for whose opinion I would have had the slightest respect
had he come to me alone; yet as I listened to those shallow cheers and
those worthless assurances of "the people are behind you, Blacklock," I
felt that I was a man with a mission!

Our main office was full, literally full, of newspaper men--reporters
from morning papers, from afternoon papers, from out-of-town and foreign
papers. I pushed through them, saying as I went: "My letter speaks for me,
gentlemen, and will continue to speak for me. I have nothing to say except
through it."

"But the public--" urged one.

"It doesn't interest me," said I, on my guard against the temptation to
cant. "I am a banker and investment broker. I am interested only in my
customers."

And I shut myself in, giving strict orders to Joe that there was to be no
talking about me or my campaign. "I don't purpose to let the newspapers
make us cheap and notorious," said I. "We must profit by the warning in
the fate of all the other fellows who have sprung into notice by attacking
these bandits."

The first news I got was that Bill Van Nest had disappeared. As soon as
the Stock Exchange opened, National Coal became the feature. But, instead
of "wash sales," Roebuck, Langdon and Melville were themselves, through
various brokers, buying the stocks in large quantities to keep the prices
up. My next letter was as brief as my first philippic:

"Bill Van Nest is at the Hotel Frankfort, Newark, under the name of Thomas
Lowry. He was in telephonic communication with President Melville, of the
National Industrial Bank, twice yesterday.

"The underwriters of the National Coal Compan